


A Tightly Woven Net

by Nele



Series: People in the Mirror [4]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-25
Updated: 2012-01-25
Packaged: 2017-10-30 03:06:10
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 28,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/327082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nele/pseuds/Nele
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Commander Zhao fails to capture the Avatar at the Fire Temple, but he does arrest five traitorous sages - and one traitor prince.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Tightly Woven Net

**Author's Note:**

> Written for gigerisgod. Many thanks to [Dancing Serpent](http://archiveofourown.org/users/Phaeton/pseuds/Dancing%20Serpent) for super-fast brainstorming help, ideas, and proofreading; all remaining errors are my own.
> 
> This story was conceived as an AU of my Jee/Zuko story "People in the Mirror", although it doesn't quite fit because it couldn't reference some relevant unpublished "People" chapters or mention the existing Jee/Zuko there. The prompt was only for Zhao/Zuko, so I wasn't going to drag in my other OTP in an explicit way. Feel free to read this as purely Zhao/Zuko with no background anyone/Zuko, if you prefer.

**The twenty-first day of the twelfth month of the sixth year of the Suiseirei Era, on the deck of the sharktiger-class battleship _Taikai_ , off Crescent Island**

 

Commander Zhao could barely hear himself think over the roar of the volcano and the still-collapsing Fire Temple as his three-ship escort raced out of the way of the eruption. They’d made it out with their lives, but that was it. Zhao was quite sure he hadn’t been this exhausted and filthy since he’d come crawling out of the owl’s library with half the sand in the Si Wong stuck in the crack of his ass. His good new uniform was riddled with burn holes. There was sharp ash in his hair and his sideburns, ash in his mouth and ash up his nose, and he had nothing to show for it.

Nothing. _Nothing._ He stared at the quivering Fire Sages in their ludicrous hats and imagined a different excruciating demise for each of them. That one would be decapitated with a saw. The one to his right would be thrown into the magma rivers under Caldera. The one with the offensively badly-groomed mustache would be locked in a copper room, under which Zhao would personally light a very big fire.

“No Prince! No Avatar! Apparently, the only thing I do have is five _traitors_ ,” he growled.

The bald one, who was going to be dropped down an old well in Fire Lord Ozai’s palace and die screaming with all his limbs broken, opened his mouth to make excuses. Fortunately for him, the captain came running up before Zhao could knock out the old rat-frog’s remaining teeth.

“Sir! Sir, there he is!”

Zhao whirled on the man. “ _What!?_ ”

The captain leaned back a little but stood his ground. He pointed almost straight ahead towards the bow.

“A motorized skiff, sir! It must be Prince Zuko!”

No. No, that would be too good to be true. Zhao grabbed his spyglass and followed the man’s outstretched arm and finger, past the high bowsprit of his _Taikai_ and to a point just off the eastern tip of the burning island. And there it was. The shape of the little boat was masked almost entirely by the choppy pattern of black and scarlet waves, but it was a Fire Navy skiff, no doubt about it.

His imagination was probably playing tricks on him at this distance, but Zhao thought he could see the snarling monster’s bald white head. It looked like the pinpoint center of a large, freshly painted drill target.

He stuffed the spyglass in his belt and gestured at the captain.

“It's the traitor. Twenty gold to whoever spotted that skiff. Now raise the catapults and shoot it.”

The captain hesitated, just like when Zhao had ordered him to fire on the Avatar while the prince’s miserable floating heap of a ship was in the way. Perhaps it was time to promote that man to a position where he wouldn’t actually have to see the bloody results of the orders he gave.

“Sir, it’s a very small target. We could waste all the shot in our armory and still not hit it.”

At this point, Zhao would happily waste all the ammunition in the whole Fire Nation to sink Prince Zuko. “No matter.”

“Sir, if we hit a vessel that size, it will explode entirely. There’s no chance anyone could survive…”

“Then all he has to do is start swimming before we hit his vessel. _Shoot_ ,” Zhao snarled. A living captive had ever so much more potential than a dead one, but after today, he was in no mood to be gentle. There was an attainable goal in his sights, and he was going to shoot that stupid little boat and destroy it and watch it _burn_. And then he was going to shoot it again.

If that snarling traitor abandoned ship in time to put his sorry life in Zhao's hands again, all the better.

“RAISE THE CATAPULTS!”

* * *

_**Two years earlier, in the study hall of the Oka Monastery, a three-day journey to the west of the Northern Air Temple** _

_Zhao made his way from the monastery’s library to the study hall, walking rather more sedately than usual to keep the precarious tower of scrolls in his arms from shifting. He’d told the nun who’d come to assist him to give him every scroll he hadn’t managed to read during his last visit here, over a year ago, and it was a much larger pile than he remembered._

_He’d left his ship behind in the harbor a day’s journey to the east and traveled up here alone. His crew probably thought he was busy being wined and dined by the local magistrates. No matter how constantly Zhao searched for every half-forgotten library and private scroll collection rumored to be near every port they visited, the men never quite seemed to believe that their captain did indeed prefer scroll-hunting to any sort of dining. Few people remembered that Zhao had crossed the Si Wong on foot for three weeks just to find the great spirit library, and then escaped in one piece as the building sank and that nightmarish piece of talking poultry tried to claw him open._

_Granted, he hadn’t spoken of that day to anyone in many years. The first couple of times he’d tried to convince others of his discovery had been humiliating enough._

_They’d regret it. One day he would laugh as their mockery turned to bile in their mouths. All he had to do was find out where the fish were. Black fish, white fish, he saw them spinning in his dreams almost every night. They were out there, and someone, sometime, must have left records of their hiding place. The Oka Monastery was renowned far and wide for its collection on spirit wonders, but if Zhao didn’t find what he needed here, he would just go elsewhere. He’d been searching for nearly a decade, but never once had the thought of giving up crossed his mind._

_It was his sixth visit to this place, but for the first time, Zhao found that he wasn’t alone in the study hall. There was a boy-child sitting at one of the low tables. He was dressed in faded green clothing so ill-fitting and utterly nondescript that it had to be a disguise, and his nose was almost brushing the tall scroll he was apparently trying to decipher._

_Zhao recognized him at once, in spite of the strange shave of the hair and the odd clothing. It was barely more than a month ago that he’d spent some of the most memorable minutes of his life staring at that face from this exact angle._

_“Prince Zuko?”_

_The boy’s head jerked up as if he’d been stung, and the sharp, clean profile turned to reveal a shockingly red mass of half-healed tissue._

_It looked like some flesh-eating disease had devoured the eye and was now spreading to engulf the boy’s whole head. Zhao tried not to rear back in disgust. Dear spirits, it was enormous. He’d known from seeing the force of the Fire Lord’s blow that the injury had to be severe, but this… The boy was lucky to be alive._

_The prince’s single yellow eye widened in recognition._

_“Captain Zhao. What are you doing here?” The eye Zhao had thought swallowed by the hideous burn suddenly opened as well. Laboriously, and only to a slit, but the barely-visible pupil seemed to focus without any trouble. “Do you bring word from my father?”_

_Zhao shook his head. It was hard to tear his eyes away from the livid mark and look straight at the prince’s face, but he managed somehow._

_“No, Highness. I came for some private research. I had no idea I’d find you here.”_

_The boy’s face fell. “Oh. I see.” His voice was different from before, hoarser, as if he’d screamed until something cracked in his throat._

_Zhao deposited his scrolls on one of the low tables and walked over to the seated boy. There were courtesies to be observed towards royalty, banished or not. He bowed at the waist._

_“It is good to see you recovered, Highness. There are rumors that you died of your injury.”_

_“False,” the boy snapped._

_Zhao smiled. “I can see that, Highness.”_

_The boy shot him a half-resigned, half-suspicious look. Silence hung between them for several long moments, thick in the summer heat._

_“If you don’t have any news for me, leave me alone. I need to check these scrolls for information about the Avatar.”_

_“Very well, Highness.” It wasn’t like they had any good old times to reminisce about. They had never been friends, or even any sort of acquaintances. Zhao visited the palace to consult with Admiral Son, his aunt on the minor war council, and to work on making himself invaluable to the Fire Lord with his broad knowledge about the Earth Kingdom coastal lands he’d spent so much time exploring. Of course he’d met Prince Zuko and Princess Azula, but he’d never made a habit out of chatting with Lord Ozai’s painfully teenaged brood._

_Zhao inclined his head towards the boy, who ignored him, and went to seat himself at the other side of the hall. He selected a promising-looking scroll and settled in for a long afternoon of reading._

_The air was beyond stifling, but Zhao was a son of fire, and no amount of heat could make him drowsy unless he allowed it. He concentrated on deciphering the archaic characters before him. Most of these scrolls were in old Northern Earth Kingdom Kokyu, a long-dead language which he didn’t understand, but that was irrelevant for his purposes. After a decade of scouring the world for this information, there was no old or new script in which Zhao would not recognize the words “moon” and “ocean”._

_He’d find them even if he had to personally catch and inspect every creature in every sea, river and pond in the whole world._

_Perhaps an hour had passed when Zhao sensed a presence at his back. He pretended not to have noticed the boy as he approached, until the prince was practically bobbing on his feet in his attempts to get a good look at the scrolls on Zhao’s table. He seemed curious, as if he desperately wanted to ask Zhao what he was doing but thought that might be undignified for some reason or other._

_It was rather amusing, so Zhao decided to take pity on the boy. He turned and inclined his head in acknowledgment. “Found any leads yet, Highness?”_

_Without warning, the boy’s face twisted in fury._

_“Do not mock me!”_

_Ho. What was that about? “That wasn’t my intent, Highness. I was only asking.”_

_Zhao took a closer look at the fuming boy. The prince’s unmarked cheek was flushed hot and red, and he was peering at Zhao as if scouring his face for any trace of falsehood or deceit._

_Ah. Perhaps the boy had heard that particular question before, but never spoken sincerely. “Have you not found people supportive of your quest, Highness?”_

_The boy’s expression changed, got sharper, more desperate than angry. Now Zhao could see it, clear as the sunlight streaming through the windows of the hall._

_Humiliation._

_For a moment, Zhao could see himself standing in the middle of the officers’ bar at the Si Wong training camp, arms upraised, having just finished his rousing account of his infiltration of Wan Shi Tong’s library and announced his great discovery to the world. The Moon and the Ocean, in mortal form, vulnerable, there for the Fire Nation to kill!_

_It had been a dry day, hot, just like now. He could almost taste the desert dust in his mouth again as he looked around at the blank faces of his peers. And like a knife in the back, he could hear someone behind him bang a cup on a table and start guffawing. They had laughed and laughed, and Zhao had felt exactly as beaten and shamed and ugly as this boy looked._

_The little prince drew himself up and tried to sneer, but it came out as no more than a painful grimace. The half-healed wound seemed to hamper the movement of his mouth._

_“They’re all fools. I’ll show them! The Avatar is out there, and I’ll bring him to my father if it takes me ten years!”_

_Oh, child._

_Zhao rarely felt sorry for anyone, but it was difficult not to pity what looked like a younger, more hapless, and far more vulnerable version of the man Zhao had been ten years ago. The little prince frowned down at him, glare steady and fierce, all righteous indignation and tattered majesty. The overlong sleeves of his awkward Earth Kingdom disguise had been pinned back to keep the adult tunic from engulfing his hands. He sounded so certain, so absolutely sure that he’d find his target and prove all his detractors wrong within a few months at the most. Zhao remembered what that was like, and especially what it was like to feel those months become years._

_This one was still soft, tender, a child reeling from a great blow but certain he could recover from this like he’d recovered from every scraped knee and burned finger. A year of supping on the world’s ridicule, two years at most, and he’d be unrecognizable. Or dead._

_Zhao felt almost obliged to warn him. _They will take your conviction and paint it as your madness, boy.__

_“That is a heavy weight you bear, Highness.”_

_“Heavy weight?” The boy looked incredulous. “Like I care what they think! I’m a prince of the Fire Nation, and I don’t need anyone’s approval!”_

_Zhao almost wished he could be there to see the boy’s face the moment he realized that he already had a reputation preceding him, and that soon, no citizen of any nation would have a shred of respect left for him. That every thinking being in the entirely world would think him a sad, pitiable creature, only to be appeased and tolerated._

_“Highness,” he intoned, voice low and insistent. “Highness, listen to me.”_

_The boy seemed to pick up on Zhao’s urgency; he stopped trying to glare and leaned in, as if eager to listen and learn._

_“Don’t try to ignore them, Highness. Turn it back on them. Take their laughter and feed on it. Learn how to stoke your fire with their mockery, and they will never be able to beat you down.”_

* * *

**The twenty-first day of the twelfth month of the sixth year of the Suiseirei Era, on the deck of the sharktiger-class battleship _Taikai_**

 

By some miracle, the catapult operators actually managed to hit the prince’s tiny skiff on their fourth try. It exploded in a beautiful inferno of flying metal and roaring fire. Zhao spent a few precious seconds imagining how much bigger and brighter the explosion would be if it were Prince Zuko’s actual ship, that pitiful scrap heap that he’d so badly wanted to ram earlier today but had to let pass. It made him feel better.

And lo and behold, the boy had actually jumped overboard during the bombardment instead of clinging to his doomed floating box like the stubborn idiot he was. The _Taikai_ had advanced much closer now, and Zhao could see the famous bald head bobbing on the water even without the spyglass.

“Man overboard,” he drawled. “Captain, take her closer so we can assist Prince Zuko. Try not to plow right over him.”

He’d been a little afraid that the boy would go under by the time they reached him. Of course he didn’t. The snarling monster was worse than a rat-roach; even when Zhao’s battleship slid up alongside him, he kept swimming away in some sort of convulted attempt to escape while also not sinking. The movement of the waves against the hull kept sucking him back towards the ship, no matter how furiously he paddled. It was hilarious.

Zhao leaned on the railing and smiled down at the tiny figure struggling below. Two of his men were trying to get a rope ladder to land in the water within reach of the boy, but since their target was refusing to stay still, they were having a hard time of it.

“Prince Zuko, take the ladder,” Zhao shouted down. “We’ll save you.”

The boy breathed fire, but it didn’t catch on the ladder’s wet ropes. 

“GET AWAY FROM ME, ZHAO!” 

He dove, perhaps hoping to find an easier way out of the ship's undertow, but a particularly high wave lifted him up and smacked him head first against the hull. He went under for a few moments, came back up spluttering and cursing, and immediately resumed his attempts to scramble away from the ship.

It still wasn’t working. Zhao had to take a few deep breaths before he was certain he could holler again without bursting into laughter.

“Where are you going?”

“TO MY SHIP!” Another wave went over him, but he struggled to the surface again. Good swimmer, and one with real stamina. Most sailors would have lost the battle by now. Still, he'd been in the water for a long time, and running blockades and racing around temples before that; he had to be nearing the end of his strength. If they didn't get him on board soon, he'd drown right under Zhao's nose. Zhao wasn't quite sure he preferred that outcome.

“We chased your ship back through the blockade! It’s at least ten leagues away by now!” And in the opposite direction of where the boy was trying to go, but Zhao decided to save that one. “Come up before you drown!” 

“LEAVE ME ALONE!” 

Stamina, and lungs too. A shame he didn’t have a brain to go with his undeniably impressive physique. Zhao briefly considered ordering some walnuts from the galley and throwing them down at the boy, just to see if he could hit that shiny white scalp from this distance. He used to be a rather good shot back in the good old days of trying to hit his fellow cadets from the lookout post.

No, enough playing. He had an Avatar to catch up with.

“Get the net and fish him out,” he told the captain.

His crew had long since learned the value of promptness. The soon to be former prince had barely made it halfway alongside the ship, Zhao sauntering along with him topside, when two sailors rushed past with the ship’s fishing net. They cast the unfurling net down just before the bowsprit, allowing the weights to sink for a few moments, and then began to drag it through the water straight towards the tiny paddling figure.

The boy gave an inarticulate scream of rage when he saw the net coming. He ducked under, but not fast enough; the runners skidded to a halt as their net caught, and three more men rushed forward to grab the ropes and tighten them.

“Haul him in,” Zhao ordered. 

“ONE, TWO, HEAVE!”

There was a great splash from below, immediately followed by much spluttering and another shriek of outrage.

“ONE, TWO, HEAVE!” 

Zhao leaned over the side and watched the net coming up with its struggling cargo. It was easily the most extraordinary sight he’d seen in weeks, including the Avatar on his flying… cow-beast. He was almost sorry he didn’t know how to work the net himself. The fishing had always looked like a singularly boring and filthy activity to him, nothing anyone would ever do if it didn’t help them get some fresh food on the table when the ship was far out at sea. But now that the prey wasn’t a heap of flopping, stinking aquatic life, Zhao could definitely see the attraction. 

The boy had shed most of his armor and tunic to swim; his arm braces were still there, but he was barefoot and wearing nothing but the standard military-issue gray undershirt and pants. He was more or less on his back and struggling mightily to get into a position where he could punch or kick fire at the net, but one of his legs was hopelessly tangled in the ropes just below the knee, and he was just making it worse with every passing second. 

His writhing was fascinating. The shapeless gray shirt had ridden up far enough that Zhao could see every ripple of the boy’s abdomen and every heave of his ribcage. The rough ropes were pulling tight around bulging muscle and broad shoulders, and oh, that looked _painful_ , but the boy only fought harder. He had to be training six or seven hours every day to have calves and biceps like that at his age. At their Agni Kai, Zhao had barely gotten a moment to admire… 

The memory doused Zhao’s enjoyment like sand on embers. That puling child had _dared_ humiliate him, in broad daylight, in front of his men.

As if on cue, the little traitor stilled for a moment and caught sight of Zhao staring down at him. He roared and hurled a fireball straight up. It flew wide. Zhao grinned fiercely, grabbed on to the nearest rope, and jerked the net so hard that the boy _screamed_. His thrashing got even wilder, faster, as if he was panicking rather than trying to make a deliberate escape now. It looked a little worrying even to Zhao. 

“Stop that, you idiot, you’ll injure yourself!” 

“I’LL KILL YOU!”

“You had your chance for that, Prince Zuko!” The net reached the railing, and for a moment, the boy hung suspended so close that Zhao could have reached out and tweaked his nose. 

He contented himself with leering. “You make a lovely fish.”

The boy shrieked like a trapped boar-deer and immediately shot another fireball, slightly better aimed than the last. Zhao swatted it aside and moved away to let his men heave the net onto the deck. The boy flopped down, still hopelessly caught in the ropes. Zhao crouched down, smiled in the prince’s outraged face, and wished there was a painter on board so they could all pause to immortalize this once-in-a-lifetime moment.

There wasn’t, though, so Zhao regretfully reached through the net and took the struggling boy by the shoulders to hold him a bit more upright. “Welcome aboard. Are we going to have a civilized discussion, or will you be joining the other traitors in the prison hold?”

Another fireball.

“Prince Zuko, if you continue being this tedious, I will send you to your room at once and you will not be given any dinner.”

He’d been so ready for yet another fireball spit at his face that the crushing pain of the prince’s heel slamming into his right knee very nearly made him topple over. Zhao gave a howl of pain and dropped the screaming monster, who immediately tripped over the netting again and fell onto the deck in a tangled heap.

Zhao quelled the urge to lift his boot and crush that ugly bald head like the egg of an ostrich-horse. “You little savage,” he growled, grabbling through the netting until his hand closed on the ponytail. He _twisted_ , and again, and again, until the boy’s yowling reached a pitch that sounded likely to shatter the glass of every porthole on the ship.

“GET YOUR HANDS OFF ME!”, he yelled when Zhao stopped pulling for just a moment. His voice broke on a sob. “RELEASE ME! HOW DARE YOU TOUCH YOUR PRINCE!”

“Ah, yes. Thank you for reminding me.” Zhao let go. The boy moaned and tried to untangle his fingers enough to reach for his abused scalp, all the while glaring up at Zhao. If fire could be shot from the eyes, Zhao was sure he’d be a human torch by now. 

He smiled again. “Prince Zuko, I arrest you for violating the order of banishment that was given to you by our liege, Fire Lord Ozai. You will be taken to Caldera and answer for your crimes.”

The boy didn't seem shocked, or even surprised. He looked devastated. “No.”

“Yes,” Zhao said, a little disappointed. He'd expected more of a reaction. “Take him to the prison hold. He can have one cup of water, no more.”

One of the sergeants stepped forward. “Yes, sir. Not the guest cabin, sir?”

“No, Prince Zuko will not be accorded royal treatment. He has proven himself disloyal to the Fire Lord on multiple occasions, including today, when he disobeyed his father's orders and hindered the Fire Navy in its duties. If he had cooperated with us, we could have detained the Avatar, our nation's greatest enemy.” The boy had closed his eyes. He was trembling, though Zhao couldn't tell if it was from fatigue or shame. “Search him, he may have more information about the Avatar on him that he's hiding from us. If he resists, sit on him and strip him yourself. Bring me his possessions when you’re done.”

“Yes, sir,” the sergeant murmured. He took a sword off one of the non-bender sailors and moved as if to cut the boy out of the net.

Zhao tsk’d. “ _Drag_ him. Prince Zuko can take a bump or two, and he clearly isn’t ready to walk around without attacking someone.”

“I’LL KILL YOU!”, the boy suddenly roared. He tried to kick, either at the approaching sergeant or at Zhao, it was hard to tell.

Zhao raised his boot and put it down on the ankle of the flailing foot. “Yes, I’m sure you’ll give it your best shot. But I advise you not to make things worse for yourself, _Highness._ ” 

When the sergeant finally commandeered two men and started hauling the net across the deck towards the entrance to the hold, Zhao looked after them until he was sure he had the whole picture memorized before he turned to find his own cabin. He needed a bath, and he was thoroughly sick of looking at the red sky and the red sea and that thrice-damned red island.

No Avatar. That smarted, it really did - Zhao still hadn’t gotten a good look at the last airbender, but judging from that tale the traitorous sages tried to spin, he was no more than a little child of twelve or thirteen. If Zhao didn’t catch him the next time, he might become known as the Commander Zhao who lost Agni Kai to teenagers and was outsmarted by children barely out of swaddling clothes.

A faraway scream of rage echoed along the corridors. Zhao grinned and began to whistle as he climbed the stairs up the command tower. One down, one to go. 

By the time a guard arrived at Zhao’s cabin with the bundle of princely effects, Zhao was feeling a good deal more cheerful about this whole disaster. Yes, he’d broken formation at the blockade, and he’d failed to grab the child Avatar or prevent the destruction of the Fire Temple. But at least the sages had given them a good enough description of the airbender to report to the Fire Lord and begin spreading wanted posters. Back when they’d interrogated the prince’s crew, that sullen, sorry bunch, they’d barely gotten any useful information beyond that the Avatar did indeed exist.

And Zhao had a very special present to attach to his report, too. No doubt Lord Ozai would spend a good while chastising his son before locking him up or booting him out again to resume his hunt for the Avatar. Either way, the boy would be out of Zhao’s hair for so long that Zhao could catch the Avatar and still have enough time to sail a victory lap around the Fire Archipelago before delivering the airbender to Caldera.

He did feel a little bit sorry for the prince. That boy had to have been spirit-cursed at birth, Zhao mused as he contemplated the small pile of soaked knickknacks on his desk. A purse containing a handful of Earth Kingdom coins and a small, polished piece of volcanic rock. A bag of dried fruits. A flat, almost-empty water skin. A dagger. And one single, extremely malodorous hemp sandal that Zhao was afraid to even poke with the end of his writing brush. _What in all hells…_

The dagger was interesting, he had to admit. Anyone could appreciate the beauty of decorative weaponry, but few firebenders ever carried a real, usable blade. Zhao caressed the lacquered sheath and drew the dagger out. The grip was inlaid with rich pearl, but it showed definite signs of wear and use, and the edge of the pale metal was so fiendishly sharp that it had to have been whetted very recently. A handsome weapon. Easily concealed, and clearly well-cared for.

He tucked it into his sash and resolved to needle the boy about it later. There was work to do first. Get a picture of the child Avatar drawn up, and have the traitorous sages interrogated for any additional information about the fugitive and his companions. Write a report for the Fire Lord before any of the other ship captains from the blockade could go yapping about how Zhao had acted on his own again.

A soldier appeared in the doorway, and Zhao gestured at the assortment of oddities. “Throw this junk overboard.”

“Yes, sir.” The man held out a small cylinder. “Hawk message for you, sir.”

Zhao stood up and moved to the window while the soldier cleaned off his desk. Not one but two small paper rolls fell out of the cylinder when Zhao popped it open. He held them side by side and let his eyes slide over the hastily drawn characters. 

_Oh, beautiful. That was fast._ An excuse to go down to the prison hold and check up on his guest, already. The day, or rather night, was looking up. Zhao made haste with his report for the Fire Lord, handed it to one of the guards outside his cabin while the ink was barely dry, and fairly skipped down the stairs to the prison hold.

Zhao was proud of running a tight ship. The cells were as spotless as his own cabin, but this part of the hold was still far from pleasant to spend any amount of time in. Further away from the boilers than any other place on board and only barely above the water line, the prison hold was relentlessly cold, and so little fresh air reached the place that even Zhao could feel his bending weaken just a smidgen from the lack of oxygen.

They’d put the prince in the cell at the far end of the hold, the one that had only bars on one of the four walls to better keep an eye on dangerous prisoners. He was also a good distance from the traitorous sages, which was probably for the best. 

The boy finally seemed to have worn himself out. He was sitting on the cot, hunched over in his ugly gray clothes as if they were a shield, and didn’t even look up when Zhao stopped in front of the bars. The skin of his hands and his head was covered in fierce-looking rope burns.

“Good evening, Prince Zuko.”

“Die on an ice spike.”

Charming. It was amazing how much that child had changed in the space of only a few years. Zhao had known it would happen, but it was still unfortunate.

“Feeling at home, Highness? I was hoping the amenities in this room would be about what you’re used to on your own ship.”

That just got him a tired glare. Ah, well. If his highness was too exhausted to perform another amusing show of rage and indignation, there wasn’t much Zhao could do to change that.

Or there wouldn’t have been, if General Iroh hadn’t been so kind as to provide him with some most excellent baiting material. Zhao held both of the hawk messages through the bars and shook them a little, as if he was luring a feral badger-dog with a strip of meat.

“I got a letter from your uncle, Highness. He wishes to negotiate for your release.” The boy looked up, and Zhao smiled. “He sends you a personal message, too, but if you don’t want it…”

The boy was off the cot and at the bars in the blink of an eye. Zhao let him whisk the papers out of his hand with an indulgent smile and watched as the boy’s eyes flew over the words. There was nothing personal in either of the messages, of course - the General would have known any letter to his nephew would be read by others, if it ever reached its intended recipient at all. It was just a few utterly bland sentences about how he and their bumbling crew were unscathed and working hard to obtain Prince Zuko’s swift release. 

The boy clutched the paper as if it contained the answers to all the mysteries in the universe.

Zhao made himself comfortable against the bars. “Tell me, Prince Zuko. I’m uncertain. What could General Iroh possibly have to offer that I might want?”

“My uncle’s not going to give you anything,” the boy said at once. He glanced at Zhao and then turned back to contemplating his utterly meaningless letter, as if Zhao was no more than a noisy bother. As if he wasn’t standing barefoot in a dank prison cell, in nothing but some ripped gray rags, looking like he’d been eaten and spat out again by a shark-whale.

The ponytail was standing up perfectly neat and straight, though. The boy had actually bothered to make his hair presentable, out of all possible things he could have been occupying himself with in his first hours of captivity. That was… adorable, really.

“Exactly what I surmised myself, Prince Zuko. I don’t think I have much to gain from opening any sort of negotiations with your uncle.” The boy’s head shot up, and Zhao grinned so wide he thought his face might fall off. “Besides, I already wrote the Fire Lord to inform him that you’re coming home in chains. I’d hate to disappoint him when he’s probably awaiting the return of his only son with such great anticipation.”

The look on the boy’s face was priceless. He recovered quickly, though, drawing himself up to his full unimpressive height and somehow managing to look down his nose up at Zhao.

“My father will understand why I chased the Avatar into Fire Nation waters,” he said with absolute certainty. “And he’ll make you regret getting in the way of _my_ mission.”

Zhao nodded. “Excellent. I’m sure he will let me know that soon, then, so I might release you into your uncle’s care and continue on after the Avatar without you.”

He got barely a moment’s warning before the boy dropped low, spun in a full circle, and kicked a truly massive fireball at the bars before launching himself forward. He was spitting with rage.

“The Avatar is mine, Zhao! Stay out of my way, or you’ll regret it!”

Zhao raised an eyebrow and contemplated the boy’s ugly snarl. That child had a lot of teeth in his mouth.

“Prince Zuko. Whatever your father will say or not say, until I hand you over to other authorities, you are my prisoner. That means, among other things, that you are _not_ allowed to attack anyone.” He raised his arm and wiped a few hissing flecks of spittle from his breastplate with his sleeve. “Please, do behave. I’d hate to put you in chains.”

“Yeah, you really seemed to hate it back at the temple,” the boy spat. He looked grossly affronted at the memory.

Zhao leered. Yes, that had in fact been one of his favorite parts of the day.

“Highness, you wound me. And I was so careful to chain you up gently.”

Barely more than a heartbeat passed before a truly spectacular blush engulfed the boy’s unmarked cheek and a good part of his shaved head. Zhao was rather surprised that the boy had actually caught the double meaning, and rather quickly at that. Perhaps nights on that pitiful old clunker of a ship were more interesting than he’d imagined.

He widened his smile, just a little. “Believe me, I would truly regret being forced to violate your royal person in that manner again on my own ship. So, we will make a simple rule. If you attack me or any of my crew, or if you firebend at all for any reason, you will not receive food for a day. Agreed?”

The boy looked like his bald head was about to pop. 

“FUCK YOU!”

Zhao nodded. “I knew you would understand if I kept it simple, Highness.”

A small, fast, very hot blast came straight at his face. Zhao had expected it and tilted his head to let it pass.

“Whoops.” He smirked in the boy’s red face. “I’ll just interpret that one as self-expression, shall I?”

“I’ll kill you,” the boy snarled. “And my father will make you pay for this.”

“In that order? Let us make another rule, Highness. Every time you say “I’ll kill you”, you owe me a copper.” Zhao suppressed the urge to pat the boy’s head. “I would make it a silver, but I don’t want to impoverish you.”

The boy looked like he was considering chomping right through the bars to get at Zhao.

“Fuck. You.”

Zhao grinned. “And every time you say _that_ , you owe me something else entirely. Do keep in mind that a prince should always keep his promises.”

The boy looked about to faint from outrage. Zhao bowed much more deeply than he really had to and sauntered out of the prison hold, whistling a little as he went. Hopefully, the Fire Lord would take a few days letting him know that he could bring the boy in. He hadn’t had this much fun in years.

He slept soundly, and like almost every night, he dreamed of the moment his hands would close around the black and white fish.

* * *

_**Two years earlier, in the study hall of the Oka Monastery** _

_The boy blinked._

_“Do you mean…” His frown softened into something almost innocent. “Are you saying you believe I can find the Avatar? Really?”_

_“Of course, Highness.”_

_The boy’s shoulders sagged. The breath he let out felt like he’d been holding it since the moment Zhao had entered the hall._

_“Why do you? Believe it, I mean. No one else does.”_

_“There are many great secrets in this world, Highness. Spirits and creatures that have been forgotten even in legends. If those exist, then why not a being that we all know was still here only a hundred years ago? Why, your own grandfather still knew Avatar Roku. There are older and darker things than the Avatar that hide from our eyes.”_

_The boy looked curious. “What things?”_

_Zhao reached over to the flat cushion resting before the table at his other side and placed it next his own. “Please take a seat, Highness.”_

_The boy obeyed and immediately leaned over the table to study Zhao’s scrolls from up close. Zhao smiled._

_“Do you know about the spirits of the Moon and the Ocean, Highness?”_

_“No. What are they?” The boy’s mismatched eyes were glittering brightly, as if he was expecting some gruesomely exciting tale of ice-cold spirits prowling through the night and drowning Fire Nation babes in their cradles._

_Zhao smiled. He was always at his best when in front of a captive audience, and he could barely remember the last time he’d had an opportunity to tell his favorite story._

_“The Moon and the Ocean are ancient, Highness,” he began, pitching his voice low and solemn. “They come from a time even before the Avatar. The Water Tribe revers them above all other spirits. They draw their livelihood from the ocean, so they give praise to the darkness of the deep and offerings to the beasts of the waters. And waterbenders draw their power from the moon, so the pitiful bending that we firebenders snuff out so easily can turn to deadly floods and torrents when the moon is full.”_

_“Like we draw our power from the sun,” the boy mused._

_“Somewhat like that,” Zhao conceded. “But not quite. The sun reigns supreme. It burns the brightest, and travels the highest, seeing all. That is why we of the Fire Nation have vision, while the Water Tribe is content to stay on its ice lands and has no ambition beyond base survival.”_

_The boy narrowed his eyes. “But the moon travels as high as the sun.”_

_“Correct. However… and this is crucial, Highness...” Zhao let his voice drop even lower. He waited until the boy had leaned in so close that Zhao could feel the other’s firebender chi swirl in the air with his every breath. “The spirits of the Moon and the Ocean have weakened themselves. They took on physical forms, those of two fish. That means they are now fully mortal, entirely unlike the eternal sun.”_

_“They deliberately made it so people can kill them?” The boy look baffled. “Why would they do something so stupid?”_

_“Perhaps to be closer to their favored people? It’s a mystery to us, Highness. We have always valued strength above everything.”_

_The boy cocked his head. “Why do you know so much about Water spirits?”_

_“I was the one who discovered the secret of their mortal forms, Highness. And one day, I will find them and kill them, and rob the waterbenders of their powers forever. For the glory of our nation.” The glory of Zhao would be a very fortunate by-product._

_“You don’t know where they are?”_

_“No, Highness. Not precisely,” he admitted. If he had this particular piece of information in his grasp, he’d have acted upon it long ago. “The North Pole, most likely, but that’s a large continent. The Water Tribe has been very vigilant about keeping this secret from us. But they will not succeed.”_

_“Of course they won’t.” The boy frowned. Then he flinched, as if moving the muscles of his face had pained him. “Why haven’t I heard about this before? It’s important!”_

_A stab of anger shot through Zhao’s gut. Irrational anger, even he could tell that much. He was the one who’d brought the subject up, and the boy was only going along with him._

_“Highness, I told many people about my discovery. Almost none have believed me.”_

_“Why not?”_

_“Because they find it hard to think beyond what their eyes can see, Highness. And they’re afraid of taking chances in return for glory.” He stared the boy straight in the face, searching for… What? Recognition? “You should understand what I’m talking about, Highness.”_

_The boy didn’t look away. His mouth tightened into a determined line._

_“Yeah, I understand.”_

* * *

 

**The twenty-third day of the twelfth month of the sixth year of the Suiseirei Era, inside the sharktiger-class battleship _Taikai_**

 

The Fire Lord’s reply did arrive swiftly, after not even two full days had passed. And just as the boy had predicted, Lord Ozai did tell Zhao to stop bothering with the prince and concentrate on his actual job.

The rest of the missive’s contents were a bit more unexpected.

_As the captains of no less than twenty-three reputable Fire Navy ships have confirmed witnessing Prince Zuko commit a serious violation of the terms of his banishment, we see no need for a trial and do not desire that you bring this traitor into Fire Nation waters. Prince Zuko is henceforth stripped of all his royal titles and banished in perpetuity. He is no man of the Fire Nation and may no longer invoke any of the laws and honors of our land._

_This letter and its seal confirm the will of Fire Lord Ozai. We order that you present it to the former Prince Zuko, as he is currently in your custody. Dispose of the prisoner at your discretion and return to your duties. We commend you for your diligence in pursuing traitors to the throne._

Zhao re-read the letter a few times, left the bridge in the hands of the captain, and headed down to the prison hold without really looking where he was going.

The boy was sitting on the cot again, in a meditative pose this time. His good eye cracked open just a little when Zhao told the two guards to leave, but he didn’t get up and seemed determined to pretend Zhao wasn’t there. 

Zhao lifted the paper into the wan light from the porthole and held it out to the boy without a word. He could think of a dozen insults to further embellish this moment of total and crushing defeat, but all his most cutting taunts sounded like mere childish jibes compared to what was actually in that letter.

The boy seemed to recognize the ribbons on the scroll, and his face lit up like a lamp. Zhao felt a brief, mad urge to set fire to the letter on the spot and pretend the hawk had never reached his ship.

“Father!” The boy scrambled off the bed, rushed forward, and snatched the paper out of Zhao’s hand before Zhao could think of a reason to keep it from him. He shot Zhao a triumphant grin - _he should have said something awful after all, given the boy some sort of warning_ \- and unfurled the paper.

It would have been polite to look away, probably, but Zhao had never been the kind of person who could keep from gawking at other people’s misery.

For a few very long moments, the boy’s expression didn’t change at all, frozen in a smile brimming with gleeful anticipation. Then he blinked. His lips opened, and he began to mouth the words on the paper, as if trying to decipher a foreign language that he only had a shaky command of.

“In per… pe… tuity…”

 _That means forever_ , Zhao wanted to say. His tongue still wouldn’t form words.

The boy sank to his knees, like a string puppet being set down very gently. He put the letter on the floor as if it were made of glass and placed both hands on either side of it. He began to breathe through his mouth, hard and fast, as if he was trying to keep something in. 

Zhao couldn’t stand it anymore. “If you vomit, you’ll clean it up yourself.”

The boy’s head shot up as if Zhao had slapped him. He didn’t say anything and kept his hands on the floor. His eyes were open wide, staring and afraid, as if someone had glued the lids open and left them like that until he went blind. Zhao wondered if this was what Lord Ozai had seen the moment before he ripped half of the boy’s face off. 

Was he going to beg for his life? Meditating in the hours before their Agni Kai mere weeks ago, Zhao had imagined that the fight might go like the prince's first and disastrous trial - that he would overpower the boy and reduce him to tears and make him _beg_ like he'd done for the Fire Lord. That had not worked out like he'd expected. But here it was, the exact picture he'd been fantasizing about.

A shudder ran through the boy, from his head all the way to his feet. He stood up. 

He braced himself with his side turned towards the bars, as if to present as narrow a target as possible. Then he took a deep breath, folded one palm over the other, and pulled them apart with a whoosh of suppressed chi, raising one arm high and ready to chop downwards. The form was so unusual that it took Zhao a moment to place it. Armadillo-bear in a forest fire, a high-level block designed to dispel a concentrated blast from very close up. This form was more of a desperate gambit then an actual strategy, though. Neither the Army nor the Navy taught it officially; it was far too dangerous to use in training, because it worked properly less than half of the time. If a powerful firebender standing at a distance of barely three paces really wanted to set someone on fire, they would. Trying to block or trying to beg for mercy would have about the same likelihood of success.

There was nothing visible of the boy’s face beyond one unblinking eye staring hard at Zhao over his raised shoulder, but Zhao could feel his breath speeding up. The torches on the wall were beginning to flicker madly. If the boy was already panicking that badly, he didn't have a prayer of managing the block.

“I’m not going to kill you, boy.” 

Zhao hadn’t really thought about it, but he knew he meant the words as soon as they left his lips. He would have done it in the Agni Kai in an instant. Perhaps outside of that as well, if given the chance and the boy kept getting in his way. But this...

The boy had fought. Maybe he’d failed to before, but he’d learned. At their Agni Kai over the boy's right to follow the Avatar, he’d attacked so swiftly that Zhao had barely gotten the time to stop admiring the view and dodge the first blast. The boy had done nothing _but_ attack anything and everyone he met for the past two years.

Dishonored or not, no man of Fire deserved to die trapped in a metal box without a chance to fight.

It was a very long minute before the panicky flutter of the torches began to calm itself and the boy lowered his arm. He sank down again, on his haunches this time, then to his knees again. He still didn't speak.

Zhao watched the mismatched eyes squeeze shut and wondered how in all hells he should _dispose_ of the boy. Not executing him was a noble impulse unusual enough that Zhao should probably make special note of it in his next official report, but what now? Turn him loose? 

It seemed like the boy was starting to recover his wits a little now that he knew he wasn't going to be murdered on the spot. He shifted in the direction of the bars. Their eyes crossed for a moment, but then the boy’s exhausted gaze settled on the black-sheathed dagger that was still wedged behind Zhao’s sash. He took a deep, deep breath and held out his hand.

“I need my knife.” His voice was thin.

Zhao scowled. He’d expected better. For some reason, he’d truly expected this child to do better in his final defeat.

“No,” he snapped, suddenly furious. “If you want to kill yourself, at least let the history scrolls say that Prince Zuko died with more honor than he lived with. Immolate yourself.”

The boy blinked as if he didn’t understand. Zhao felt like hitting him. “I can explain the technique if you’re unsure of how to go about it, boy. It isn’t hard. You just build up the same amount of chi you’d need to torch a tree at twenty paces, then set it alight inside your stomach instead of on contact with the air. All that takes is a bit of concentration.” He sneered. “I hear the difficult part is carrying on through the pain until you’re dead. Some lose focus halfway through and then spend days dying while their insides fall to dust.” He’d actually seen that happen once. That particular man had mercifully burned enough of himself that he couldn’t truly scream anymore, but the stench had been beyond indescribable.

The boy closed his eyes and took a deep breath, and for one vaguely horrifying instant, Zhao thought he was actually going to do it. Then he exhaled an explosive gust of smoke through his nose and shot Zhao an utterly _furious_ look. He curled his left hand into a tight fist and punched it to the side, producing a short, white-hot fire blade.

“I’m not going to _die_ ,” he snarled. Then he grabbed at his ponytail with his other hand, so tightly that his face twisted in pain, and slashed his hair free of his scalp with one pass of the blade.

The stench of burning hair hit Zhao’s nostrils a moment before the boy hurled the tail right at him with another outraged snarl. Zhao snatched it out of the air in pure reflex. 

“You may tell my father that I accept his judgment, as always.” His breath seemed to stutter for a moment, but he recovered quickly. “I won’t claim to be a man of the Fire Nation anymore.” He rose to his feet, stalked the short distance towards the bars, and poked Zhao in the chest with two outstretched fingers, so hard that Zhao could feel the pointed strike even through his armor. “But I’m going to earn it back. All of it! And _you_ are going to regret every insult you ever did me!”

The boy had gone mad.

“You can’t earn it back. He doesn’t want you anymore.”

“How _dare_ you presume to know the will of your Fire Lord,” the boy hissed. “He’ll change his mind. When he realizes that the Avatar is truly back and there's a way for him to let me come home, he'll give me another chance. I’ll capture the Avatar and…” His brow furrowed into a half-surprised, half-annoyed frown, as if he suddenly had no idea why he was even talking to Zhao in the first place. “…and whatever else I have to do. I’ll convince him, I know I can. I was careless this time, but if I…”

Zhao watched the boy pace through his cell, lips moving and fingers dancing, as if he was making plans and counting the things he was going to need. The bundle of hair in Zhao’s hand was beginning to unravel as the seared red ribbon fell apart. 

Zhao closed his fingers over the falling strands to keep them together.

“Boy!”, he barked. The former prince stopped walking and shot him another annoyed glare. “Boy, you’re delusional. Give up.”

The boy’s lip curled. It was the most fantastic sneer Zhao had ever seen anywhere but in the mirror.

“ _No._ ” He turned fully towards Zhao. “Let me off this ship immediately.”

Zhao held his hands up. “And then what? Are you going to start swimming to your uncle again?”

“Shut up about my uncle,” the boy snapped. “Drop me off at the nearest port. This is an order!”

“On whose authority are you issuing me orders, boy?”

“Stop calling me that! You have no right to keep me here!”

“But I do.” Zhao leaned forward until his face was almost touching the bars. “Boy, you are outcast. You’re not a prince. You’re not even a citizen of any nation. You have no claim to _anything_ , and there isn’t a single law or rule anywhere in the world that protects you from _anyone_.”

The boy opened his mouth, but Zhao cut across whatever insane denial he was about to voice this time.

“I could kill you, boy,” he whispered. “It would be as great a crime as if I’d killed a rat. I could sell you to the first pirate ship that comes by. I could chain you to the engine of this ship and make you slave at the boilers for the rest of your miserable life. I could fuck you until you cry every damned night, _boy_ , and you’d still be less a child of Agni than the ugliest whore in Caldera.” He smiled. “Decisions, decisions.”

The boy gaped at him for a few seconds, but then his scowl slammed down over his face again as if it had never left.

“My uncle was right. You’re disgraceful. And if I don’t do it first, he’ll _kill_ you when he finds you!”

Zhao slashed a trail of fire through the air. Enough.

“Yes, yes, I’m sure he will, and I do _not_ have time for that sort of nonsense!” The boy hadn’t even flinched at the flames, but he jumped as Zhao slammed his fist against the bars. “I have an Avatar to catch, and you and your damned uncle will _not_ get in my way again.”

“The Avatar is _mine_ ,” the boy hissed. There were sparks behind his white teeth.

Zhao leaned forward a little until his eyes were almost, but not quite, on the same level as the boy’s. The face in front of him looked oddly out of balance without the ponytail.

“Boy, I’m going to make you an offer, and I’ll make it only once,” Zhao intoned softly but clearly. “Swear an oath on the honor of your uncle that you’ll stop going after the Avatar. If you promise to stay out of my way, I’ll let you go.”

The boy blinked. “You’re letting me go?”

Zhao made a vague, expansive gesture with the hand that wasn’t still clutching the hair. 

“ _If_ you swear not to hunt the Avatar anymore. Go live in the Earth Kingdom. It’s not all desert and piles of rock, some of the cities are quite civilized. You’re young and healthy. Take your uncle, find yourself a place to live, and make sure nobody ever finds out who you are. Get yourself a girl. Raise some brats.”

The boy stared at him for a few moments, as if he was processing all that and actually considering it.

“No,” he said.

Zhao took a deep breath and did _not_ throw fire. Here he was, trying to be _merciful_ , and the critter spat in his face.

“Last chance, boy,” he snarled. “Use your damned head for once in your life! Swear you’ll stay out of my way, or you can rot in this room until I catch the Avatar and bring him to your father, and _then_ I’ll hand you over to be executed.”

The boy was looking more mulish with every word Zhao said.

“No. I will _never_ give up!”

Now Zhao did throw fire. It made him feel marginally better, and the boy had to twist to the side to dodge the blast. 

“What are you going to do?!” Oh, _yes_. This felt good. He should have started shouting minutes ago. “ _What?!_ You’re a prisoner in the middle of the ocean! You have nothing! No one’s going to help you!”

“I’ll think of something,” the boy snapped.

He really was insane. 

“Let me know when you’ve figured it out, then. I’ll be busy hunting the Avatar, Highness…” Zhao raised a brow. “Oh. My apologies. _Zuko_.”

The boy exploded. He hit the bars so hard that he actually bounced back for a moment before hurling himself forward again.

“LET ME GO!”

“No. _Never_ ,” Zhao jeered. He took a few steps backwards so he could appreciate the spectacle in front of him more fully.

“COWARD!,” the boy yelled, banging on the bars. “You have hundreds of ships and, and men, and money, and I don’t have _anything!_ Coward! Let me out and give me a fair chance!”

Zhao sighed. “Boy, why would I?”

“Give me a chance,” the boy repeated. There was an alarming tightness in his voice, as if he was finally close to tears.

“No,” Zhao spat. “You got in my way, boy, and you’ll take the consequences. I won’t be remembered for losing to a screaming child like you.” 

“You’re pathetic,” the boy spat.

Zhao looked him up and down, eyes lingering lovingly on the filthy gray clothing, the ridiculous tuft of hair sticking to the back of his head, the bare feet, and the rather spectacular pattern of bruises and criss-crossing rope burns that still covered most of the boy’s sickly pale skin. That humiliating Agni Kai suddenly seemed like no more than a bad memory.

“Pathetic? Me, boy?” 

Zhao felt a savage grin spread across his face. Seven hells, it was _good_ to see the little monster down. He couldn’t even remember why he’d wanted to spare the boy’s life moments ago, but he was oh so very glad he had.

“I’LL KILL YOU! I’LL KILL YOU!”

“And I will do whatever I like,” Zhao said. “Allow me to demonstrate. Guards, the prisoner is overwrought. Chain him and gag him before he does himself any harm.”

That was easier said than done, it turned out; the boy fought like he was getting murdered after all, and he screamed so loudly that Zhao was sure his eardrums would never be the same. The guards had to call in another four men to safely subdue the little monster.

When they’d finally managed to truss him up, Zhao knelt down next to him and patted the sweaty scalp. The boy tried to shake his hand off, but he succeeded only in knocking the back of his head against the floor so hard that even Zhao winced at the crunching sound of it.

“You can stay like that for a day or two. Calm down. Contemplate your place in the universe and piss in your pants.” He rose and walked away, waving at the guards. “Release him by breakfast the day after tomorrow. And send the barber down to shave his scalp while he’s still chained, he looks like a vulture-monkey.” 

He was all the way to his cabin before he realized he was still clutching the filthy bundle of hair and tangled, burned red ribbon. On a whim, he rolled it in rice paper and ordered the little package sent to General Iroh without a note. The old fart wasn’t so senile that he couldn’t draw his own conclusions.

An hour later, Zhao had given himself the hiccups because he couldn't manage to stop chuckling all the way through his dinner. This was… indescribable, really. The little monster was going to _think of something_. He was going to get out of a metal cell and make it to a ship that he didn’t know the location of, or possibly swim around the ocean on his lonesome until he happened across the Avatar. Zhao was almost tempted to set him free after all, just to see what he’d do.

The scullion who brought in dessert came accompanied by the sergeant who’d dragged the boy to the prison hold in his net two days before. The man looked like he’d just lost a fight with a komodo rhino. He reported that Prince Zuko had wriggled out of his chains without anyone noticing, knocked out the barber and both of his guards with the cell’s waste bucket, and almost made it onto the deck before they managed to tackle him.

Zhao stormed down to the prison hold and yelled at the little monster for a while (mostly because of the barber, who had been trained on Ember Island and was the most expensive crew member on board besides Zhao himself). The boy sat huddled in the corner of his cot, in tighter chains this time, and just stared at him with yellow eyes ablaze with loathing. The Fire Lord’s letter was nowhere to be seen. The boy had either incinerated it or hidden it in his clothes before making a run for it.

Another hawk from General Iroh arrived before dawn the next morning, even though Zhao hadn’t replied to the last one except by sending the package of hair. The old man had clearly either interpreted that message correctly or been informed of his nephew’s permanent banishment; his tone had shifted from urgent attempts at convincing Zhao to negotiate, to calm explanations about why they would all be happier if Zhao just handed the boy over.

Zhao wrote back that he was perfectly aware that Prince Zuko’s ship and its entire crew had been ordered to return to the Fire Nation, and that General Iroh might do well to obey the Fire Lord instead of trying to convince loyal officers of the Fire Navy to engage in treasonous hand-overs of prisoners. The General ignored that completely and went on pleading that Zuko was surely a burden, and he’d be happy to relieve Zhao of the responsibility to care for him. When Zhao stopped replying, he just kept sending hawks. 

The old coot was careful; his messages were unfailingly polite and entirely free of anything that might be construed as a threat. He clearly believed that Zhao might do something horrible to his hostage if he got ticked off. The attempts to tiptoe around Zhao’s temper were certainly enjoyable, but if the old man thought he could possibly manage to be more infuriating than said hostage, he must never have actually met his nephew. 

The boy was the most singularly, relentlessly malcontent captive Zhao had ever had in his prison hold, bar none. The guards complained that he was eyeballing them constantly, as if planning a hundred different ways to kill them. When he wasn’t eyeballing, he was running cold katas and aiming straight at whoever was standing outside his cell at any time. Sometimes he seemed to be meditating with his eyes closed, but he opened them the second his guards dared look the other way. He didn’t seem to really sleep, beyond a brief nap now and again. He tried to escape at least once every day and twice every night. Within two days, he’d exhausted all the usual methods and started to get creative. 

It was vaguely fascinating for a little while; Zhao learned to look forward to the sergeant’s morning and evening reports about what the boy had tried this time. He was busy handling the interrogation and hand-over of the treasonous sages, plus the various complaints from his superiors about his actions at the blockade, so he barely had any time at all to go down and needle his guest.

Then the boy seemed to tip from creative into full-out desperate. He reportedly stopped sleeping entirely, and the escape attempts got so brutal that even Zhao struggled to find them amusing any longer. Before, the boy had been characteristically squeamish about really hurting whoever got in his way, but he seemed to have stopped caring. During his fifth night on board, he used his firebending to dig a shank out of the softer metal of the inner wall plating, then somehow managed to badly injure both of his guards with it _before_ prying open the lock of his cell and sneaking into the lifeboat hold. He burned another two sailors who tried to grab him. Nobody died, but that seemed more by sheer luck than by design.

Zhao had had enough. He was also finished fending off his useless superiors, so this seemed like an excellent time to take charge of the escalating prisoner situation. He briefly considered just changing his mind entirely about keeping the snarling monster. His main objective was to ensure himself a smooth and meddler-free path to the Avatar, and the boy was clearly determined to be as big a nuisance on Zhao's ship as he'd been while running free. 

The only alternatives to keeping him on board were killing him, selling him, or setting him loose, though. Killing him while he was trapped and defenseless (for a certain value of defenseless) was still not an acceptable option. Selling him would probably turn out to be the equivalent of setting him loose; if it was taking the constant vigilance of half of Zhao's firebenders to keep the boy on the appropriate side of the bars, he was unlikely to have much trouble escaping from Earth Kingdom slavers. And simply freeing him so he could find his uncle and carry on with his own Avatar search was starting to look more than a little risky. If the boy had been persistent before, he'd be desperate now. It was still very doubtful that he'd manage to secure the Avatar first, hampered as he was by his complete lack of resources, but Zhao was neither stupid nor blind. He had underestimated the boy before. What he lacked in resources and common sense, he made up for with mind-boggling persistence and a quirky, violent sort of creativity that Zhao was increasingly growing to respect the danger of.

The boy was staying. Zhao vastly preferred to keep this particular enemy where he could see him, and also, the boy was _interesting_. Now, all Zhao had to do was figure out how to make his prisoner settle down and keep his hostility to a manageable level. He had some ideas about what direction he might like to see that hostility go in, but it was always wise to begin an undertaking by gathering information. Zhao knew a thing or two about gathering information. Since there were no scrolls to consult in this case, though, observation was clearly his best option.

When he walked into the prison hold with four men laden with scrolls and furniture on his heels, the boy stopped in the middle of the basic kata he’d been executing and stared. He looked dreadful. The bumps and scratches he’d gotten from being dragged in the net were mostly healed, but he seemed decidedly peaky after multiple days with much exertion and barely any food, and the purple splotch under his good eye was so dark and large that he might as well have been punched in the face.

Zhao ignored him entirely in favor of supervising the correct placement of the table he’d brought. When he was certain it was precisely parallel to the bars of the cell and exactly in the center, he allowed the men to bring in the chair and unload his writing materials. It wasn’t as roomy as his real desk up in his cabin, but it would suit for most purposes.

Finally, the boy couldn’t contain himself anymore.

“What are you doing?”

“Your guards tell me you’re very annoying. And dangerous,” Zhao said. He paused to snarl at a sailor who had just nearly dropped a rack of brushes. “I’m going to keep an eye on you myself.” 

It was hardly an imposition, really. He didn't have any urgent work that he couldn't conduct outside of his own cabin. Reports were starting to pour in from the dozens of hawks and men he'd sent out to gather all recent intelligence about the Avatar, many reports, and Zhao planned to read and consider all of them thoroughly before trying to go after the little airbender again. This was going to be a well-informed, elegant, and _focused_ pursuit, not a crazy catmonkey race. He was quite done making a fool of himself in public.

All right, he was technically supposed to do all his work in his cabin so that people would know where to find him. But Zhao had always concentrated better in new places where he didn't know every crack and stain on the walls yet; he was an adventurer, and he loved a change of scenery.

“Get out of here,” the boy ordered.

Zhao appraised his new temporary office with its view on his disgraced rival behind bars. This was choice scenery indeed. 

“I seem to recall that this is my prison hold.”

“Go away!” The boy was eying the simple but well-equipped desk with visibly mounting alarm. He must have found out by now exactly what it was like to live, sleep, and shit with two guards milling about in front of the open cell every moment of the day and the night. The prospect of having Zhao trample all over the last shreds of his privacy had to be about as attractive as eating his own fingers.

He was lucky Zhao had decided to start out this new phase in their relationship with a conciliatory gesture.

“Hand the prisoner his clean clothing and leave,” he told the two guards who were still with him at the end of the hall.

“Yes, sir.” One of the men left at once, and the other held a bundle of gray-green fabric through the bars. The boy approached and took it with a slightly nonplussed expression. The guard began to bow, seemed to remember himself, and scuttled off. 

“Left behind by a man from Gaoling who was once a guest in this very same cell,” Zhao explained as the boy shook out the pants and tunic. He decided not to mention where the man from Gaoling had gone. “Believe me, I truly do find the color very regrettable, but it’s the only clothing on this ship that is not Fire Nation. Thus, it’s the only clothing on this ship that you’re allowed to wear.”

The boy glowered. He looked about as enthusiastic about the outfit as Zhao had expected, but seemed resigned to spending his energy on some later battle. Any clothing that was whole and washed had to be a more attractive prospect than the filthy remains of the boy’s military grays.

“Fine,” he snapped. He dropped the unfortunately-colored pieces on his cot and reached for the topmost frog latch of his stained shirt. Then he looked at Zhao and stopped.

Zhao smiled and reached up to stroke his sideburns. “Yes, I am going to sit here and watch. Hop now, I haven’t got all day.”

The boy’s face didn’t twitch. “No.”

Zhao surveyed the layout of his new desk, then shifted his ink stone so the top edge was perfectly aligned with the rack of brushes. “You’re not convincing me that you don’t actually want to be in chains, boy.”

“ _No._ ”

Satisfied with the placement of his writing utensils, Zhao settled back in his chair, folded his hands on his stomach, and stared the boy straight in the eyes.

“If you don’t disrobe immediately, I will burn your clothes off. Then I will burn the new clothes you were given, so you can stay in here naked. I don’t care.”

For a few seconds, the boy looked like he was seriously considering attacking Zhao in some way or another. Zhao just leered at him and waited. This was going to be a beauty of a tantrum, he could tell. The air of the prison hold was already heating up.

“Fine,” the boy snarled. Zhao blinked.

The boy reached into his grimy shirt, drew out a few folded papers, and placed them on the cot with great care. Then he marched to the center of the cell, turned fully towards Zhao, and drew the shirt over his head without bothering to undo any of the latches. 

Before Zhao’s eyebrows had made it very far up his forehead, the boy snapped through the ties of his waistband and pushed his pants down his legs, loincloth and all. He snatched the rags from the floor and ignited them with such force that within two heartbeats, there was nothing left but a small cloud of swirling ashes. Then he crossed his shapely arms over his even shapelier chest and just stood there, naked as the day he was born.

 _My._

It took Zhao an embarrassingly long time to notice that his mouth was hanging open. He finally remembered to lift his hands and start clapping. “Bravo, bravo. You may dress now.”

That had been very nice, and a much greater eyeful than he’d expected to get in at least a week. Still, Zhao had the niggling feeling that he hadn’t _quite_ won this one. And there was a weird little smile curling one corner of the boy’s mouth as he sauntered back to the cot, as if he knew what Zhao was thinking. 

No, surely not. He couldn’t possibly be that self-aware.

Or maybe he was. The possibility stayed alive at the back of Zhao’s head over the following days as he began to spend his evenings down in the hold, analyzing reports on the Avatar while keeping one eye on the boy, half to make sure he didn’t try to kill people and half because he was _fascinating_. The boy radiated resentment at his presence, and at first, he seemed determined to sit on his cot in stony silence until Zhao went away. It was less than an hour before Zhao managed to goad him into clinging at the bars and yelling pointless threats and insults. 

The boy also seemed determined to sulk and do nothing productive or interesting with his time while Zhao was there, but Zhao only had to accuse him once of being ashamed to show his pitiful firebending prowess to put an end to that. Then the boy began demonstrating kata like his life depended on it. He was quite good. Certainly not as extraordinary as one would expect from a bender of his lineage, but he had raw power, and a very limber and exceedingly well-trained physique that allowed him to execute some quite spectacular moves. Since he had to do the kata cold, there was no fire to draw attention away from any part of said physique. The boy didn’t go so far as to take his tunic off, but the Earth Kingdom fabric wasn’t made for a firebender’s body heat, and it ended up soaked with sweat and clinging in interesting places more often than not.

He seemed to be doing the boring, repetitive sets when Zhao was otherwise engaged and saving the more impressive moves for when he had an audience. There were sloppy mistakes in his kata, and Zhao itched to point out every single one of them in exquisite detail. He didn’t. If the boy got mocked for his firebending, he might stop, and Zhao wanted to see him perform more than he wanted to see him crawl away in shame.

It was a little annoying to find himself passing up perfect opportunities for humiliation. That just wouldn’t do. Zhao made a greater effort to take full advantage of his position and think up petty insults and indignities to enrage his captive with. It was fun for him, and the boy _loved_ getting enraged. He exploded over the smallest slight and acted like he was being murdered whenever Zhao did something that was actually a little bit cruel. Zhao couldn’t help but think that at least half of the fury was pure theater. 

Sometimes the boy even managed to do the unexpected and turn the tables, if never for long. One day, Zhao decided he’d try and sit in front of the cell long enough that the boy would be forced to use the waste bucket with Zhao watching. He foolishly announced his intentions in the morning, and ended up losing the contest when he had to visit the latrines himself halfway through the afternoon. The boy smirked as if he’d won the thrice-cursed Agni Kai all over again instead of merely demonstrating superior bladder control.

The smirk was showing up more and more often, as a matter of fact, particularly whenever the boy caught Zhao staring at him during his training. It was getting so blatant that Zhao was almost ready to just come out and proposition the boy directly. He’d meant to draw it out, but all the smirking was making him feel like the boy was mocking _him_.

“Only one escape attempt tonight, sir, and he wasn’t really trying,” the sergeant told Zhao on the ninth day as he handed over his morning reports in Zhao’s cabin. “Thank you for your assistance, sir.”

Zhao frowned. “What?” He didn’t recall having assisted anyone with anything in at least a month.

“The prisoner, sir,” the sergeant droned. “He’s been much improved since you’ve been coming down to spend time with him, sir.”

“What are you talking about?” The man had never said or done anything strange before, as far as Zhao knew. He had charge of all the guard rosters on board, and was one of those handy people who did their jobs well enough with such regularity that Zhao forgot they were there.

“The prisoner is very young, sir. And going through a stressful time.” The sergeant paused. “I think he may appreciate it that you’re giving him an outlet for his frustrations, sir.”

For a few moments, Zhao contemplated the possibility that he was being used as an outlet for frustrations. Then he marched down to the prison hold and interrupted the boy’s mid-morning training routine.

“Am I cheering you up?”, he accused.

“What?” The boy’s lip curled. “No! Fuck you!” He made an extremely rude hand gesture that he'd probably learned from the sailors on his ship and went to sit on his cot to glower, as if determined to show that he was indeed still miserable.

The guards were clearly as stupid as they were incompetent. Perhaps the boy was settling into his lot a bit - or at least, not being quite as self-destructive as he’d been in the beginning. But he was still an astoundingly moody and unpleasant specimen. 

When Zhao walked down to the prison hold on the tenth day, carrying a tea tray and fully intending to make conversation with a maximum of actual words and a minimum of screaming, he only had to take one look at the boy to know that it was not going to be a good evening. He was awake and sitting upright on his cot, eyes fixed on the cell’s single porthole, and he looked _sad_. There was something white clutched in his fist. A piece of paper, too small to be the Fire Lord’s missive. His uncle’s note, then.

Thunder rumbled somewhere in the distance. The sea was choppy enough to bring waves splashing against the porthole, but it wasn’t raining yet.

“What’s my uncle doing?”, the boy asked suddenly.

“I’ll be damned if I know and damned twice if I care,” Zhao said. He set down his tray and began to arrange the tea things.

That was only half true; he didn’t know precisely what General Iroh was doing, but he did know where the old coot was. His _Yuan_ was following Zhao’s _Taikai_. The old little cruiser had been nowhere to be seen the first four days of the boy’s captivity, but now the lookout caught sight of it at least daily. The ship always stayed far out firing range, and had quickly darted away the one time Zhao turned the _Taikai_ around and steamed straight at their little pursuer. 

General Iroh had stopped sending hawks, though. The last thing Zhao had received from the old man was a letter addressed to his nephew. It was all meaningless ruminations about having tea together and playing pai sho and attending some sort of music night, but Zhao wasn’t entirely sure that there wasn’t some sort of hidden message concealed in the blathering, so he hadn’t given it to the boy. No need to take unnecessary risks. Not while the old man was no doubt planning something. And not just him; reports said that the _Yuan_ ’s captain, Lieutenant Jee, had stopped answering Navy communications entirely. There were few things in the world that Zhao found less intimidating than the sorry old crew of that sorry old wreck, but if they were supporting General Iroh, that meant the old man still had a ship and could move quickly.

“Hang the mutineers from gallows and the traitors from the trees,” Zhao hummed as he prepared the tea.

The boy turned to stare at him. He looked faintly perturbed. “What?”

“Nothing. A traditional Navy drinking song.” Zhao smiled. “Tea?”

“I don’t want any tea,” the boy groused. He went back to drilling a hole through the hull with his eyes. Thunder rumbled again, a little closer, and he shivered. “Is that a bad storm?”

“Nothing that could harm us,” Zhao answered.

The boy sneered. “I’m not worried about _us_.”

Ah. “I’m sure General Iroh is fine, boy. These days, you barely hear any more reports about those rickety old cruisers going down in ill weather.” Zhao waited for the boy to turn towards him again for the requisite glaring, and then smiled. “Although that may be because most of them are at the bottom of the ocean by now.”

“Fuck you,” the boy muttered. That was starting to sound like an endearment to Zhao’s ears. The fact that the boy wasn’t standing at the bars yelling in Zhao’s face yet was almost worrying, though. It was out of character. Zhao wondered if his guest might be feeling sick.

He smiled wider. If his highness was tired, Zhao would just have to make some extra efforts to be infuriating. “Your ship is a true antique. You should be proud of it for that reason, if no other.”

“It’s not my ship, _is it_ ,” the boy grumbled. 

Zhao set out two cups and began to pour. He hadn’t brought his good tea set; it had taken him only a few days to learn that it was wise not to visit the prison hold wearing any clothes he wouldn’t be happy to lose, or carrying anything that wasn’t allowed to break. 

“I’m glad you feel that way, boy. After all, we may have to destroy it ourselves.”

The boy’s head whipped around as if Zhao had slapped him across the face. “What?!”

Zhao smiled. “Navy command has informed us that your uncle ignored orders to return the ship and its crew to the Fire Nation. Your former vessel has been declared rogue, and every man on it a deserter. We have orders to sink them on sight.” He took a sniff of the tea. Excellent. “Given your presence here, I estimate we have a fairly large chance of finding the good _Yuan_ in our sights one of these days. I hope your uncle swims as well as you do.”

The boy stared at him. His mouth was hanging open.

Zhao walked up to the bars and held a steaming cup. “Tea?”

The boy took one look at the cup, shrieked like a madman, and knocked it out of Zhao’s hand with a wild swing.

“DON’T TOUCH MY UNCLE!”

Zhao reared back to stay out of reach of the hands that were grabbing for him through the bars. The boy wasn’t even bending, just pushing himself against the metal and trying to claw at Zhao’s face and screaming his ugly head off.

“DON’T TOUCH HIM! I’LL KILL YOU IF YOU TOUCH HIM! I’LL KILL YOU, I’LL KILL YOU!”

For a moment, Zhao considered not getting angry. Then he remembered how long ago it was that he’d last had an excuse to yell.

The teapot exploded in a beautiful shower of pottery and steam when he hurled it against the bars. Alas, the boy ducked.

“I’M NOT GOING TO TOUCH YOUR UNCLE, YOU MORON! I’M GOING TO BLOW HIS SHIP OUT FROM UNDER HIM!”

From the look on the boy’s face, that was sixty times worse.

“DON’T TOUCH MY SHIP!”, he roared. Somehow, he was still getting louder with every word, and Zhao hadn’t seen him breathe in even once for at least a minute. “IT’S MY SHIP! MINE! YOU DON’T GET TO TOUCH IT, YOU STINKING COWARD!”

“YOU ADMITTED IT WASN’T YOUR SHIP ANYMORE! FIVE MINUTES AGO!”

“It’s _mine_ ,” the boy croaked. For a second, Zhao thought his voice might finally be gone, but then the boy took a deep breath and opened his mouth again.

“COWARD! COWARD! MY UNCLE NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU! MY CREW NEVER DID ANYTHING TO YOU! COWARD!”

Zhao leaned forward and spit flame. “I’m going to blow your ship so high they’ll see your fat uncle sailing through the air all the way from Ba Sing Se.” 

The boy _howled_ and tried another futile lunge through the bars. Zhao raised his hand to set the boy’s clothes on fire, but then he noticed the looks on the faces of the two guards. They were staring at him as if they were wondering whether or not to call the physician.

Zhao took a deep, calming breath, and then another. He’d gotten into a screaming match with a toddler. Fantastic. This would certainly help his reputation recover from that Agni Kai debacle.

“DON’T TOUCH MY SHIP!”

Zhao turned to the shrieking monster again and leaned forward until their noses were almost touching.

“ _Boom_ ,” he hissed. 

The he turned around and stalked up to the bridge to demand the latest reports about sightings of the _Yuan_. There probably hadn’t been any, since his men had orders to come inform him of them at once, but planning the little old cruiser’s demise would cheer him up. He was halfway up the stairs by the time he realized the boy hadn’t resumed his screaming when Zhao had walked away. That was strange, and strangeness was damned annoying. 

Zhao tried to sleep on it, but by the time the sergeant appeared for his morning report, he’d only managed to get himself worked up about how infuriating the boy had been yesterday. For some reason, he'd thought they were getting beyond that sort of nonsense.

“Commander Zhao, sir?”

“ _What?_ ” Zhao set the hanging next to the door on fire. The sergeant stepped to the side a little to avoid any embers that might leap onto his spotless uniform.

“The guards in the prison hold have expressed concern, sir.”

Zhao waved a hand. “If the prisoner is too noisy, chain him up and gag him.”

The sergeant seemed to ponder that for a moment. “Sir, the prisoner’s not being noisy. He hasn’t screamed even once in ten hours. Or glared at anyone. Or tried to escape.”

That sounded wonderful as far as Zhao was concerned. “So? Maybe he's finally done venting his _frustrations_.”

The sergeant stayed where he was. He didn’t say anything and his face was as blank as the sea during dead calm, but Zhao got the distinct feeling that the man was not happy with him.

He hissed smoke and resisted the urge to torch one of his better officers. The things he had to do to keep his reputation as a strict but not unreasonable leader… Zhao snatched General Iroh’s letter for the boy from his desk and shoved it at the sergeant.

“Give him this and tell him to act like a fucking adult,” Zhao growled.

The sergeant couldn’t have any idea that the paper was not a shopping list, but he seemed prepared to withdraw for now. “Yes, sir.”

That evening, the guards reported that the boy had taken the letter, curled up on his cot, and slept through the whole day. Zhao found his own rest easier that night. He dreamed, but for the first time in years, it wasn’t about the fish.

* * *

_**Two years earlier, in the study hall of the Oka Monastery** _

_“I understand,” the boy repeated, more strongly. Then he frowned at Zhao. “But if no one believes you, how can you be sure that you can really find those water spirits?”_

_“I saw the truth with my own eyes, Highness. I was in the library and held the scrolls. The information is correct, and no one who wasn’t there can tell me otherwise.”_

_“But you must have been looking for years.”_

_The boy stared at Zhao as if he’d never quite paid attention to him before. Perhaps he was seeing himself spend not months, but years in search of something invisible that only he believed in._

_Zhao wondered if he should tell the boy about the library under the Si Wong. If there was any knowledge about the Avatar still undiscovered in the world, the owl would surely have it. But in his current state, the princeling would probably manage to offend Wan Shi Tong within seconds of entering and get himself dropped down the library’s bottomless shaft. Best wait some months, or years, until he could at least carry an adult conversation._

_“Almost ten years, Highness. But it is my destiny to find those spirits, and I know I will succeed. Time is of no importance.”_

_He reached out and placed a hand on the boy’s where it rested on the table, at the edge of the unreadable scroll. It would have been an unforgivable trespass only a few months ago, but exiles couldn’t be too picky about the manners of others. Something the boy had apparently come to understand already; his fingers twitched under Zhao’s, but he accepted the touch nonetheless. Or perhaps he was just seeking reassurance._

_Zhao tightened his grip. “Highness, you must believe that you, and only you, are meant to capture the Avatar. If you make it your destiny, then no one will be able to take it from you.”_

_The boy’s hand twisted sideways. He managed to grab hold of two of Zhao’s fingers and clasped them in his own, tightly, almost desperately. His head was so close that Zhao could see the tiny beads of sweat on the shaven, unprotected skin. There was a gentle scent clinging to him, fresh, like crushed leaves - a hair oil, perhaps._

_The prince had no eyes for Zhao, though. His gaze was fixed on the unreadable scroll, wide and unblinking and vaguely frightened, as if he was only now realizing exactly how momentous his task was. His fingers were beginning to tremble._

_Zhao lifted their entwined hands off the table. The boy made a confused sound and tried to resist, but Zhao’s hand nearly engulfed his and held it up easily. It was a lovely hand, Zhao mused. Pale, and smooth, and soft as the underside of a fire lily. The boy had the beginnings of fire-roughness and some calluses in odd places, but otherwise, his skin was as unmarked as Zhao’s was weathered from years of salt, wind, and flames. White fingers curled reflexively when Zhao rubbed his thumb over the tender palm._

_The swirl of chi between them had halted entirely. The boy was holding his breath._

_Why not. The boy was here, and he needed something, and Zhao was here, and no one else was. Even if the prince took it wrong, there was nothing he could do to harm Zhao. The Fire Lord was hardly likely to get offended on his son’s behalf._

_The hand jerked as if from a lightning shock when Zhao’s lips pressed against the palm. Zhao didn’t give the boy time to think or react; he breathed a quick gust of fire, barely enough to irritate the skin, and immediately began licking along the patches of red he’d created. Broad swipes with the flat of his tongue over the pads of the thumb and fingers, alternated with forceful caresses of the tip along the sweeping grooves in the palm._

_The boy’s exhale came in a broken moan, almost inaudible and yet obscenely loud in the utterly still air of the hall. He tried to shove his hand forward against Zhao’s face, but Zhao tightened his grip and dug his thumb into the over-sensitized palm, hard. The boy’s hiss was half pain and half plea. Zhao ignored it and kept pressing down until the fingers were forced to open, unfurling like flower petals. He swept in and thrust his tongue between the forefinger and index, along the delicate webbing of skin. Again and again, in and out, slowly and tightly, in a parody so obvious that even a sheltered fourteen-year-old couldn’t possibly mistake it for anything but what it was._

_The boy stopped breathing again. Then he yapped like an angry puppy and jerked his hand away with such strength that Zhao let go in surprise. But a soldier didn’t live long if he couldn’t recover swiftly from unexpected things, and Zhao’s hands shot up to form a quick and dirty block against whatever firebending was about to come his way._

_A mouth closed over his instead - clumsy, all teeth, but so fiery hot that the saliva on the soft lips turned to steam the instant it touched. Oh, good boy, good boy. Zhao hummed and immediately deepened the kiss, taking charge, pushing and licking until the boy opened wide and let Zhao’s tongue in. He lifted both hands to cradle the boy’s skull and hold him in place before he began to thrust his tongue in again, hard and insistent, until the boy whimpered and began to lean backwards with his spine curving like the back of a pipa. Zhao could hear the slap of his wet palm against the floor as he scrambled for balance._

_Keeping one hand tight on the slim neck, Zhao groped around for another cushion to shove under the tilting boy’s head. Couldn’t let him smack his skull on the floor, it would startle him out of this lovely daze and…_

_There was a faint trace of poppy in the boy’s mouth. Pain medicine._

_That was when Zhao realized he’d missed touching the barely-healed burn only by chance. He’d forgotten it was there. Before he could think better of it, he opened his eyes. The red blight was only inches away, and it seemed to be staring straight back at him even with the mutilated eye closed. There were still wet and tender patches on the wound._

_Sparks spilled out from between the boy’s lips when Zhao pulled away. He grabbed at Zhao’s tunic, seemingly without thinking._

_“No, _more_ ,” he ordered breathlessly._

_Zhao shook his head. “Not today, Highness.”_

_The boy tried and failed to scowl. The tip of his tongue kept darting into view out of his half-open mouth, as if he was trying to lick up the traces of fire Zhao had left on his lips. He looked hot and confused, and thirsting, and not all that much like a child at all._

_Regretfully, Zhao drew away and folded his hands on the table. A shame to leave this one untouched. But he could always stop by a whorehouse if he had to, and this boy was perhaps a bit young for the real work, even if the mark of battle on his face made him a man in the eyes of Agni._

_Besides, Zhao wasn’t entirely certain that he wouldn’t be inviting some sort of spirit vengeance by deflowering a boy in the middle of an ancient sacred building. A decade of reading about supernatural antics had given him a healthy respect for the temperaments of spirits who had _not_ been so idiotic as to assume a mortal form so that Zhao could kill them if he had to._

_“Why did you do that?” The boy’s voice was raspy and quite a bit deeper than his usual penetrating trill. Perhaps this was what he’d sound like all the time in a few years, when he was tall and grown._

_“Perhaps for luck, Highness. Yours and mine.”_

_The boy huffed. He was still quite red._

_“I don’t get much of that.”_

_“So I’ve heard.” Zhao smiled. “Some of us must make our own, Highness. Such is the way of things. No feat of greatness comes without struggle.”_

* * *

**The third day of the first month of the seventh year of the Suiseirei Era, inside the sharktiger-class battleship _Taikai_**

 

Over the course of the next few days, it became clear even to Zhao that he’d truly managed to upset the boy by threatening General Iroh and that floating heap of a ship he was on. The little critter had reverted right back to the way he’d been when he first came on board two weeks ago. Whenever he wasn’t yelling, he was trying to break out and firebending at his guards until they were forced to clap him in chains while he calmed down. Zhao almost regretted winding the boy up like that. They’d been making such progress, and in such an interesting direction.

He’d forgotten entirely about his own “firebending means no food” rule, truth be told, until the scullion who brought him his dinner hesitantly pointed out that the prisoner hadn’t had a single bite in four days.

Zhao contemplated the tray in front of him as he tapped his fingers along with the spattering of rain outside. Ah, well. Not feeding the boy hadn’t gotten him any real results, anyway. Maybe it was time to try something different.

A thrill of foreboding ran down his spine, and Zhao looked up just in time to see the windows of his cabin flash white with lightning. He shivered harder as the energy seemed to jump from the air straight into his blood, traveling every which way along his limbs for an infinite second before pooling low in his stomach.

Yes, tonight was a good night for something different.

“Go away,” Zhao told the guards the moment he marched into the prison hold. He slammed the tray with his dinner on the table. 

The hold was dark, almost oppressively so, in spite of the guards’ torches. The storm they were sailing through was a bad one, much blacker and more vehement than the brief spot of bad weather they’d had four days ago. The _Taikai_ was massive enough that few storms could really make her move much, and the rocking was barely noticeable this far down in the hull, but the darkness was so thick it was almost tangible.

“You want us to leave, sir?” One of the guards shot a nervous look at the cell’s occupant. 

The boy was standing stock still in the center of the room, just outside the circle of light cast by the nearest torch. Zhao could see his eyes gleaming. He looked beyond ravenous, and as electrified by the storm as Zhao.

These guards were only middling firebenders, not strong enough to sense lightning. They wouldn’t understand. They did seem aware that there was something odd about the boy tonight, though. “Sir,” one of them tried again. “He’s been acting strange today. It may not be safe to…”

“The prisoner and I have been known to have a cup of tea without killing each other. In the past,” Zhao drawled. “I’m sure we can…”

Then he noticed it. The boy’s eyes were fixed, hard and unerringly, not on the food but on the pearl dagger still wedged in Zhao’s sash. 

Zhao raised his eyebrows, extracted the weapon, and placed it on the desk next to the tray. He had no idea if the boy was actually any good at armed combat, but tonight seemed like a singularly unpleasant time to find out.

“There we go. Now get out of here,” he told the guards. Fortunately, they actually obeyed this time and disappeared down the hall. 

Zhao opened his mouth, but the boy cut him off at once.

“Where are my things?”

Zhao blinked. “What?”

“Everything I had with me when I came here!” The boy pointed to the dagger on the desk. “I want my things back.”

Zhao frowned. “You know perfectly well that you can't have your pig-sticker. And your other effects were thrown overboard.”

The boy stepped up to the bars, and the light of the torches seemed to reach for him. His face was twisted in fury.

“You threw them away!?”

“Your clothing was ruined, and all you had on you was junk. I kept the only thing of value.”

“There was a small black rock,” the boy began. “It was shaped like…” He trailed off.

Oh? “Was it valuable?”

The boy’s eyes briefly shot to Zhao’s face, then back to the knife. His face hardened. “No. It was just a rock.”

A keepsake, then. One dear enough that he’d keep it on his person even during a dangerous mission rather than risk being separated from it. That was interesting.

Lightning flashed again, so close that it lit up the whole room like an explosion of blue flame. 

The boy’s arms jerked. He seemed to rise up like he was about to take flight, pale sparks dancing along his outstretched fingers, until he was standing almost on the tips of his toes. He stayed motionless for endless seconds, and his eyes reflected the lightning so profoundly that they looked as white as Avatar Roku’s had been in the temple.

Then the light faded. The boy fumbled his landing; he tottered a little before stumbling rather than walking over to his cot to sit down. There was a beautiful tent in his pants. He didn’t seem to have noticed.

Zhao had watched the strange suspension with bated breath as he tried to ignore the prickling rush of his own fire mixed with the fey outside energy. The boy couldn’t generate lightning like most of his family, Zhao was sure of that. If he’d mastered that technique, he’d have tried it in one of his escape attempts by now. But his blood was strong enough to call the cold fire to it, oh yes.

Zhao opened the cell door, walked in, and locked it behind him. The boy made no attempt to take advantage and try to get out.

“Highness. Are you cold?”

Zhao hadn’t timed it, but the burst of pale lightning that followed his words seemed like a sign from Agni himself. The boy shuddered, then abruptly pulled his knees up to hide most of himself from view. 

Darkness bled back into the cabin, and all Zhao could see of the boy was two white hands clutched over his shins and a mismatched pair of yellow eyes. They glittered too brightly over the boy’s knees, almost glowing, as if a bit of the lightning had stayed behind inside him. He might have clung to it deliberately. Zhao liked to do that himself, sometimes; if he made a concentrated effort not to let the energy mix with his own chi as soon as it hit him, it could linger for minutes, a thrumming pressure on his inner fire that felt like it was always just on the verge of slipping beyond his control. The sensation was remarkably like staving off an orgasm.

The boy looked unsure, but not particularly hostile. He had to be lonely. He missed his senile old uncle, and perhaps he had friends on his ship. Maybe there was even a sweetheart waiting for him in a colony town somewhere. Even a nasty piece of work like him needed companionship, and he was definitely old enough this time.

Zhao stayed at the bars. He didn’t have to come any closer to sense the heat slamming off the boy. 

“I apologize for your effects. I wasn’t aware I was destroying precious keepsakes.”

“They weren’t keepsakes,” the boy said. His voice had grown even hoarser than usual, thick with hunger and want.

“No?” Zhao smiled. “Don’t you have a lady to give you favors, boy? I hear it’s still quite the tradition among the young sailors to have one in every port.”

“I don’t have time for ladies.” The heat of him seemed to be reaching for Zhao like the lightning had reached for the both of them. The boy had to be blushing, but it was hard to tell with most of his face hidden like that.

“Don’t fret. I’m sure you’ll find one who fits you one day. There are plenty of blind girls in the world.”

“Fuck you,” the boy breathed.

Zhao reached out one hand in invitation. “ _Yes._ ”

The boy’s head jerked up. His mouth opened a little.

Zhao leaned forward, not quite advancing. “Boy, I’m not asking to wed you. This can’t be your first lightning storm.”

A shake of the boy’s head. His hair was growing, Zhao noted absently. The stubble covering his skull had been darkening by the day, and now it was definitely hair - a cap of almost-black bristle that drew smooth arches along the back of the boy’s neck and over his forehead, broken up only by the tendrils of scar tissue that seemed to reach up over his left eye. Zhao wondered if it would be soft or rough to the touch.

He reached out a little further. “Come here.”

The boy didn’t move. He kept his eyes glued on Zhao’s hand, in a stare so intense that Zhao could feel it crawling over the skin of his knuckles. It went on long enough that Zhao could feel the edges of his control begin to fray and snap. He’d been holding the energy in for far longer than he usually bothered to, already; his whole skin was starting to feel too tight.

“I could always call in the guards and have them pin you down, boy.” He’d never actually done a thing like that, but it certainly made for a lovely picture in his head.

The boy’s face twisted in fierce disgust. “Then maybe you should get on with that instead of standing there babbling at me!”

Zhao leaned forward a little. “You want me to stop talking, is that it?”

“ _Yes._ ”

“A shame. I enjoy talking.”

“I can tell,” the boy said, somewhere between a hiss and a whisper. Then, before Zhao could reply, “I’ll do it if you shut up.”

Zhao held his breath for a moment. The fire in his stomach roiled. “Very well. Perfect silence from this moment on,” he conceded. “Any other special requests?”

The boy was uncurling from his crouch, long, gray-clad legs stretching out as one white foot reached for the floor.

“Shut up and _don’t touch me_.”

Zhao raised an eyebrow. He’d been informed of more than a few unusual bedroom requirements in his life, but this was a new one. “Not touch you? That might complicate things, bo…”

His voice left him. The boy had twisted off the cot and was stalking towards him, very fast, head held low and eyes fire-bright. Zhao took a step back in pure reflex and felt his back hit the bars.

The boy was right in front of him in the blink of an eye. In the weak light, his scar looked like a splatter of thick dark paint on an otherwise perfect drawing.

“Shut up, Zhao,” he hissed.

His lips looked thinner than they'd been two years ago, so much less like a child's, and Zhao leaned forward for a taste. The boy dodged him and dropped to his knees.

He grabbed at Zhao’s belt with one hand and ripped straight through the tough leather with a hot flash of fire. Before Zhao’s skirt guard had even finished slipping down his hips, the boy had already stuffed four fingers down the waistband of his pants and loincloth at the same time. There was another flash, so close to Zhao’s bare stomach that he couldn’t keep back a thin gasp of pain, and then a louder one as cloth was roughly yanked down over the scalded skin.

The boy shot him a quelling glare, as if Zhao had said something lewd and distasteful. Then he wrapped two overheated hands around the base of Zhao’s cock and swallowed him down with barely a moment of hesitation.

He knew what he was doing. Hellfire and _ashes_ , he knew what he was doing - he didn’t take it down far enough that he might gag on it, just held on as if he might tear that cock right off and hollowed his cheeks and sucked so hard that it almost hurt, before withdrawing a little so he had room to move his tongue and lick it better. There was fire crawling right under the skin of his strong fingers, and in the back of his throat, close enough that Zhao could feel the heat of it every time the boy took him in deep. 

The whole thing was so unexpected that it took a second or two for sensation to truly catch up with Zhao’s mind, and by then, his own fire was already tearing through his blood faster than he could possibly hope to control. Control had never been one of his strengths, anyway. He slammed his head back against the bars - he barely felt the blow at all - and grabbed on to the metal with both hands, trying to keep the steam hissing between his teeth from erupting into live fire. If he made too much noise, the guards down the hall would come running, and… 

They’d come running and _see_. They’d spread the tale in every port from here to Ba Sing Se, until the boy’s pitiful crew and his fat old uncle heard that their little commander was spending his captivity servicing his jailor on the floor of his cell.

Zhao’s right hand grabbed at the boy’s mutilated ear all by itself. It felt hot and rough.

“Boy,” he choked. “Boy. Tell me…” _Tell me who taught the crown prince of the Fire Nation to suck like a port slattern who’s been in the trade for a decade. Talk to me, you little…_

The slick heat around his cock gained a sudden, fierce bite of teeth, and then it disappeared entirely. A hard side-chop knocked his hand away. “Shut up and don’t touch me!”

“All right, all _right_ ,” Zhao gasped, and then he could _feel_ the heat approaching, and didn't have to look down to know that the boy was bending over him again with his mouth already wide open. Zhao slammed his hand back onto the bars and braced himself only just in time to keep from bellowing as a liquid-hot tongue slid up the underside of his cock. He could hear the metal under his fingers beginning to hiss and soften, and prayed that his clothes wouldn’t catch fire. 

Breathe. Zhao took a deep breath and tensed every muscle he could, forcing the rushing fires away from his groin and back up and down every free chi path in his body. It made his arms and legs shake like the whole blasted ship was rattling apart around them, but at least it bought him a few more seconds. He looked down.

The boy was panting now, lips opening around Zhao’s shaft every couple of sucks to take in quick, shallow breaths. His good cheek was so red it was nearly as dark as the scar. The scarred eye had closed entirely, and the other was at half mast, barely a slit of gold burning through. There was only one hand clutching the base of Zhao’s cock now. The other was out of sight somewhere below and under the baggy clothes, but Zhao could see the boy’s shoulders and arm muscles shifting, working as he pumped himself. Fast, very fast, _he_ was making no effort whatsoever to last. Youth.

 _I can teach you to do better than that_ , Zhao thought. The idea sent his mind careening past a dizzying succession of images, all blurring together into one fierce pinprick of heat behind his eyes. He could keep the boy. See him with _his_ hands clutching at the bars, white fingers on glowing red metal. Bent back over that damned cot, shaking and begging for Zhao’s mouth and hands on him. Spread out on Zhao’s bed, fire plunging up and down the long curve of his spine as Zhao moved inside him. 

Up to now, Zhao had managed to let the boy do his admirable work and keep still, but _that_ undid him. His hips bucked hard and fast, twice, before he caught himself. 

The boy’s eyes snapped open as his rhythm was broken; he jerked backwards as if he’d been shoved, and Zhao almost yelled in protest. His voice stuck in his throat when instead of snarling or snapping, the boy _stopped_ just like he'd done in that flash of lightning. A grimace of not-pain tightened his features as his whole body seemed to snap taut. He rose a little on his knees and curved backwards at the same time, head tilting back until the cords in his neck stood out in stark lines.

He made no sound at all this time, not the slightest whimper.

It lasted only a heartbeat, just long enough for Zhao to feel a shudder going through every part of the boy that was pressed up against him. When the tremor passed over the boy's face, it was like an invisible hand touched him with sleep; the tightness around his mouth faded, just as his eyes closed entirely and the knot between his good and his scarred brow dissolved as if he'd never had a reason to frown in his entire life. His lips were reddened and wet. He looked absolutely beautiful.

Then he dropped back into his former kneeling position and slumped forward, straining for breath in short, soft gasps as his too-tight grip on Zhao's cock shifted and loosened. The boy’s hand unfurled, fingers fanning out through Zhao’s pubic hair until the tips dug into the soft underside of his belly while the thumb stayed below and pressed down on his balls. There was a tiny, delicious edge of pain to the pressure. Two weeks. He'd been in this room for two weeks, he wouldn't have had any way to trim his fingernails properly. 

For a moment, Zhao thought he wasn’t going to continue. Then he felt a face press into his inner thigh, small puffs of hot breath followed almost at once by the insistent press of a nose. The boy was _nuzzling_ him. 

Without thinking, Zhao reached out and cupped the back of the boy’s head. He kneaded the skin and brushed a hand over the bristles. They were as soft as new rabbiroo fur, barely even tangible as his fingers traced the boy's hairline, from the back of his neck up along the underside of his skull until they encountered the warm and delicate shell of the healthy ear.

The fingers nestled loosely around his cock shivered and _gripped_ , and Zhao came with a strangled shout.

No running feet, was the first thing that came to his mind when he caught his breath again a few moments later. No guards coming to see. Good. He didn’t want them to see anymore.

A cough, and then the boy abruptly jerked his head to the side. He wiped his fingers on Zhao’s pants with fast, jerky motions before clambering to his feet. He’d already tied the cord of his waistband by the time he was fully upright, and he turned away at once without even looking at Zhao. There was just a tad of unsteadiness in his gait as he walked over to his cot, grabbed hold of the edge, and leaned down to pick up the beaker standing on the floor. Zhao watched him drink in mute fascination. The boy’s white hands were shaking; he spilled a good amount of liquid all over his front and his face. Some of it began steaming up around him almost at once.

Zhao could feel his own fingers trembling as he began to straighten his clothing. When he groped for the torn ties around his waist, he realized they’d been burned so thoroughly that even knotting the ends together wouldn’t help. He’d have to walk back to his cabin holding his skirt guard up with his hands. It was all the way at the other end up the ship and up the tower; he’d never make it without someone spotting him. He’d had his clothes burned off before, but definitely not since he was still a green recruit fooling around with his peers. Nobody had _dared_ in years. He was impressed, he really was.

The boy coughed again. He clenched his hands on the edge of the cot and slumped forward, taking in deep, bracing breaths.

“Slut,” Zhao whispered. It was like a shout in the still air of the room. The boy shuddered as if another lightning blast had run through him, but the storm was fading outside, no more than rough waves and rain now.

“Is this what you do in every port when your uncle is off shopping, _Highness?_ Find yourself a sailor with a fat cock and stuff your face in a dark alley?”

The boy growled into the cot’s thin mattress. “Fuck _off_ , why can’t you just stop talking?”

“It’s how I show affection,” Zhao said. 

The boy shot him a half-hearted glower. He sat up properly, feet on the ground, and began to rub his knees. Ah. Hard floor, nothing but thin cotton pants - that had to hurt. 

A few drops of water were still sliding down along the tendons in his neck, and the worn fabric of the wet tunic clung to his chest. He truly was a handsome boy underneath it all. Zhao felt a brief impulse to walk up to the boy, yank his pants down, and return the favor. The mere thought made his knees ache. Zhao didn’t enjoy pain with his pleasure, not in general. 

He just smiled instead and waved a hand in the general direction of the desk. The food on the tray was thoroughly cold by now, no doubt, but what had cooled could be heated again. 

“You can have my meal, boy. I hear you’ve been going hungry.” Zhao regretted that he hadn’t brought wine. A bigger reward than the commander’s dinner was in order here, really.

The boy just kept glaring, but Zhao thought he saw his shoulders slump in relief.

“Aren’t you happy to be getting food, boy?”

“What, you expect me to be grateful for something that’s my due anyway?”

“I certainly wouldn’t expect gratitude from you,” Zhao said. He locked the cell behind him, passed a hot hand under the tray until the dishes began to steam, and then slid the meal under the bars. The boy eyed the tray like he wanted to jump it and devour it whole, earthenware and all. He seemed to hesitate while Zhao was still standing there, though, as if showing evidence of hunger was somehow less acceptable than bringing himself off while choking on his enemy's cock.

“A goodnight kiss, Highness?”

The boy stared at him as if he’d proposed they suckle on frogs. “ _No_ , and don’t call me that. Leave me,” he ordered, as if he was in a throne room and Zhao had merely come to pay his respects.

Zhao left the boy to his meal and took the stairs to his cabin three at a time instead of the usual two. He rode out the rest of the storm holed up with a bottle of the good Caldera wine in the washing room attached to his cabin. It was a cramped and uncomfortable space, but it didn’t have even a tiny porthole, and the lightning didn’t feel so much like sand in his over-sensitized veins if he couldn’t actually see it.

If the boy was at all embarrassed, he did an excellent job of hiding it. He still ran his cold kata while Zhao was at the desk in the prison hold, but now there was a new swing to his movements. The unflinching confidence he’d displayed even after the Fire Lord’s letter had been steadily unraveling as he failed again and again to escape, but now it was all back with a vengeance. At first Zhao thought the boy was gearing up for some new and spectacular escape attempt. After a day or two of watching him spin and kick and bounce off the walls of his cell like a whole troupe of hog-monkeys, though, he was almost sure the boy was just working off excess energy. Not training, but playing.

If he didn’t put a stop to it and ground the boy back in his place soon, this new cockiness would only get worse. That could never end well. But it was… nice to see him almost cheerful. Zhao could let him blow off steam, just a little. Surely he could ignore the annoying bits of the boy’s personality and focus on the extremely distracting picture he made there, punching and whirling his way through kata after kata, tunic snapping around his midriff with every quick twist. It sounded like a perfectly reasonable idea that had every chance of working smoothly.

Another two days later, Zhao was beginning to consider retiring from service and taking up gardening. His mind was obviously not what it used to be.

“Found the Avatar yet?” 

The boy’s voice was dripping with glee. Zhao pinched the bridge of his nose so hard that he saw stars, until the afterimage of the boy behind the bars had faded away and he could return his focus to the chart that was spread out over his desk. It was overrun by a small army of little flags, one for each Avatar sighting, in different colors depending on the reliability of the report. Zhao had been trying to connect them all afternoon so he could divine the accursed airbender’s likely course and next destination. It wasn’t like he had anything better to do. It would be days before they reached Pohuai and interesting things might happen, and the _Taikai_ was currently ploughing through an endless fog bank so thick that one could barely see across the deck. That meant no firebending training, nothing to see, and nothing to do but sit inside and try to be productive. 

It wasn’t working. Zhao was quite ready to give up and use the chart to choke the jeering monster on the other side of the bars. He might have considered propositioning the boy again, but his head was pounding unbearably after hours of drawing hair-fine lines on the chart. A lifetime of peering at minuscule writing on illegible scrolls hadn’t done his eyes any favors.

“No, we do not have the Avatar in custody,” he sighed. “ _Obviously._ But we’re on his trail. He instigated a revolt among the earthbenders on the Dai prison platform, and we just got an unconfirmed report that he might have tried to flood a village with a Fire Nation garrison in it. Gaipan.”

The boy was silent for a few seconds. Zhao could almost hear his little mind whir as he calculated what that had to mean for the current distance between the _Taikai_ and the Avatar. Bright, the boy was not, but Zhao had found out over the past couple of days that he had an extremely accurate memory for maps. Perhaps a result of three years with nothing to do but train and stare at charts. It must have been amazingly boring. 

The boy folded his arms as if to signal he’d come to a conclusion. 

“You’re letting him get away,” he accused. 

“Be quiet.”

More silence. The boy was staring at Zhao’s hard work with his ugly lopsided yellow eyes. Judging, as if Zhao was a schoolchild who was making a commendable effort but really wasn’t quite there yet.

“…I know how fast air bison fly. I studied all about it.”

“I don’t want your help,” Zhao snarled.

“You’re not doing it right.”

Zhao raised his hand to slam it down on the desk and remembered just in time that that would make his little flags jump all over the chart. He lowered his smoking fist and resolutely did not look at the boy.

“ _Silence_ ,” he bit out. “Commander Zhao is busy. He’ll pay attention to you after finishing this chart, on which he needs to _concentrate_.”

That got him an explosive snort. It was followed by blessed quiet, though, so Zhao just sighed and went back to his painstaking work. All the lines and characters on the paper had begun to blur together over half an hour ago. Damned little dirtbender hamlets with their unpronounceable names. He was going to flatten every single one of them, just so they’d stop cluttering up good Fire Nation maps.

“Hey, Zhao.”

The boy sounded so close he was as good as sitting on top of the desk. Zhao drew in a hissing breath and lifted his brush from the chart.

“ _Boy_ , if you don’t…”

He was very close, that much was true. He was also pressed up against the bars in a way that was beyond obscene.

His mouth - the one he’d been using to suck Zhao down like his life depended on it - opened to let the tip of a dark pink tongue dart out. It drew a moist, glittering path along the boy’s thin lips, first the top and then the bottom. The corners of the lips lifted in the tongue’s wake.

“You’re dripping on your chart,” the boy said. 

Zhao looked down. A puddle of ink from the brush had obliterated a vast area just to the north of Pohuai, in a perfect circle, as if a volcano had erupted. It was still advancing. Zhao watched as the black lava swallowed Colonel Shinu’s fortress whole. Well. That would have killed all the Yu Yan, damn it all to…

Zhao took a deep breath, set the chart on fire, and grabbed the keys to the cell. “Back off,” he snarled at the boy as he advanced. 

The boy chuckled. He was obviously an evil spirit sent by the black and white fish, here to distract Zhao from his true quest and life’s goal with Avatars and tantrums and abdominal muscles so hard and fine that…

Damn it, he still had the blasted dagger in his sash. At the exact moment when he reached down to draw it out it and leave it on the desk, Zhao's eyes caught movement behind the boy’s shoulder. 

He blinked and focused on it. “…What in seven hells is that?”

The boy stopped grinning and looked around. A _creature_ was clinging to the outside of the porthole, illuminated quite clearly by the torches against the backdrop of the thick fog outside. The thing was ugly as sin, green and feathered, and had a beak that seemed sharp enough to crack skulls. It looked like an evil picken.

“A parrot-lizard,” the boy said. He took a few steps towards the porthole, as if he would have tried to pet the critter if the glass hadn’t been in the way.

Suddenly, it took off. The boy made a disappointed noise, but Zhao was already frowning hard enough to make his forehead throb along with the rest of his head. Something was going on here. They were much too far away from the coast for any birds besides sparrow-gulls, and parrot-lizards weren’t long-distance fliers. It must have come from another ship…

The idea had just begun to burrow into Zhao’s mind when the sound of the alarm bells pierced his headache like a shot.

The boy was back at the bars immediately. He looked tense, but not frightened. After three years on that floating wreck, he was probably familiar with every sort of emergency a ship could possibly find itself in. “What’s going on?”

“I don’t kno…”

“Sir!” It was the captain, huffing and panting. “Sir, the lookout sighted the rogue ship _Yuan_! She’s running dark in the fog! _Right behind us, sir!_ ”

Zhao whirled around. What was that fat idiot trying now? “Is she in range?”

“Yes, sir!”

“Good,” Zhao snarled. “Get up there and raise the…”

“No!”

Zhao turned around. The boy was standing pressed against the bars, skin corpse-white wherever the metal was digging into his flesh. His one good eye was open wider than Zhao had ever seen it. One of his arms was stretched out through the bars, fingers spread wide and straining towards Zhao.

“Don’t sink my ship.” His voice was thin, as if his throat was being squeezed shut.

Zhao looked down at fingers that were just barely brushing his shoulder guard. One unpredictable boy in his prison hold, he could handle. But he wasn’t going to chase the Avatar with General Iroh snapping at his tail all the damned time, dawdling on the horizon and plotting only the spirits knew what. The old man wasn’t going to give up. And he was dangerous - Zhao knew not to delude himself otherwise. Whenever he blinked or looked the other way, like now, the General would try something.

Zhao stepped away from the reaching hand. “Captain, raise the catapults.”

“NO!” The boy threw himself against the bars hard enough to make them rattle, and to make one of the two prison guards jump backwards. Zhao turned and began to stalk towards the deck.

“NO! WAIT! NO, NO!”

The boy’s yells quickly morphed into an incoherent howling that echoed along the corridors long after Zhao should have been out of earshot.

All three catapults were up by the time he stepped out into the whitish night. The fog was beginning to break; he spotted the other ship at once, so gray and silent that it might have been a part of the fog, astoundingly close at their rear port side. There wasn’t a single light visible anywhere on board, but Zhao could easily make out the shapes of men on the deck, some running, some crouched close to the railings. 

Most of them wore Fire Nation armor. There was also a gaggle of others, though - a much more disorganized bunch in an assortment of shapes and colors, all of them very clearly armed to the teeth. As Zhao watched, the parrot-lizard from earlier swooped past with a cry and landed, squawking, on the shoulder of one of the men on the other ship. 

“What are they doing?”, Zhao asked his captain. “Are they trying to _board_ us?”

The captain was squinting through a spyglass. “It looks like they were going to, sir. But there’s not enough of them to risk it if they don’t have the element of surprise. They stopped coming closer when we rang the alarm.” 

The man was right. Whatever General Iroh had been about to do, he seemed to be giving up, or at least hesitating - the shape of the light cruiser was changing and fading as she turned, away rather than towards the _Taikai_.

The captain lowered his spyglass. He looked as astounded as Zhao had ever seen him. “Sir, they have pirates with them.”

A thrill of something like horrified respect crawled down the back of Zhao’s neck. Spirits above and below, the old coot had balls. Fire Navy soldiers were no climbers, especially not old sailors like those that made up the crew of the _Yuan_ \- so the General had hired himself some specialists. If that lookout had stopped picking his nose and started paying attention a minute later, the other ship would have approached closely enough for ropes to be thrown up to the deck of the _Taikai_. Zhao had fought more than his share of battles against pirates. Any boarding party might or might not have managed to free the former prince, but it would have ended up an extremely bloody affair either way.

The captain nodded. “Catapults ready, sir.”

“Fire at will.”

“FIRE!”

Before the first fireball soared into the sky, Zhao knew they weren’t going to hit anything but unlucky fish tonight. The other ship was slowing and turning, obviously intending to duck out of reach behind the _Taikai_ and then make its getaway. It had moved sharply enough to slide out of the way by the time this volley arrived at its destination, and the angle would only become more awkward from now on. They could probably reload only once, perhaps twice, before the little cruiser managed to disappear into the fog entirely. It might be a floating wreck, but its size gave it all the advantage in this situation: they could make it out with no more than a bit of deft steering. And if that stunt at the blockade was any indication, General Iroh had a _very_ good helmsman standing at the wheel. Zhao’s captain was hollering for a change of course so they could keep the other ship in range, but it was too little, too late. A battleship this size wasn’t made for quick maneuvering.

Groans of disappointment went up around the catapults as all three fireballs splashed harmlessly into the little ship’s foaming wake. The captain’s arm shot into the air.

“RELOAD! FIRE!”

Zhao watched the men scramble and light projectiles with an odd sort of detachment. The ship shuddered and shook with the force of the blasts. The air was thick with smoke and the stench of burning tar, and the crew was getting swept along, stomping and shouting, yelling encouragement at their comrades working the catapults. Usually, Zhao’s fire would be pumping through his chest by now, roiling and thrashing to be let loose. He loved bombardments. 

He was bored. He didn’t want to be up here. It was pointless, a waste of ammunition. They were turning, but far too slowly, and the other ship wasn’t stupid. It zigzagged the moment the second volley let loose.

“RELOAD! FIRE!”, the captain hollered again.

When he turned to Zhao, though, his face was a mask of frustration. “Sir, they’re faster than us. We should have waited until they got closer.”

“Thank you for your penetrating insight, Captain,” Zhao snarled. “Try to have it a little earlier next time.”

The captain flinched and bowed. Zhao growled and clutched the railing of the bridge deck, pouring excess heat into the metal as he watched the little ship run like Koh himself was on its heels. The third volley didn’t even get close.

He wasn’t nearly as angry as he’d expected to be. Part of him was almost… relieved.

Oh, that was just brilliant. He was actually _glad_ he didn’t have to go down into the hold and tell the boy his uncle had been blown to smithereens. Damn this all to hell and back.

He was halfway to his cabin when one of the guards from the prison hold intercepted him. The man was wide-eyed, and definitely not his usual color.

“Sir, the prince… I mean… the prisoner…” 

Something sank in Zhao’s gut. “What about him?”

The boy had tried to claw through the hull. 

Zhao stood inside the cell and gaped like an idiot. The plating around the porthole looked like a small dragon had attacked it. Deep molten furrows criss-crossed on the metal in sets of four or five parallel lines, some of them still glowing red-hot. They were all over, from the floor to the ceiling, as if the boy had been looking for a weak spot.

In fifteen years in the Navy, Zhao had seen more than one firebender go haywire and cause some sort of spectacular damage. This was… His brain sputtered as it tried to reconcile the carnage with the pale, unconscious form lying slumped on the floor.

“What happened to him?”, he finally managed.

The guard who’d come to fetch Zhao lifted his sword, pommel first. One other guard had also followed them inside, but a small group of them was standing in the corridor, whispering and throwing uneasy glances at the unconscious boy. “We had to hit him on the head a few times, sir. He wouldn’t stop.” 

Zhao knelt down, took the boy’s right wrist, and gingerly turned the hand palm up. He winced. The damage wasn’t as bad as he’d expected from the look of the wall, but those burns were going to hurt before they healed.

“Get the physician down here.” He put the hand back down and began to rise. “Take care of him in here. Do _not_ take him to the medical bay.”

The guard with the sword shook his head vehemently. “No, sir! I mean, we definitely won’t let him out, sir.”

“Good,” Zhao sighed.

The other guard _squeaked_ and drew his own sword so fast that he almost decapitated his colleague.

“He woke up!”

Zhao looked down, just in time to block as the boy reared up at him with flame spilling from his open mouth.

“MURDERER!”

Zhao kicked him back down. “Your stupid ship is fine, you cretin! It got away!”

The boy froze with Zhao’s boot still on his shoulder. “They got away?”

“ _Yes,_ ” Zhao snarled. 

He dug his heel into the collarbone for a moment before stepping back. The boy didn’t even seem to notice. He’d covered his face with both hands and was taking deep, loud breaths that made his ribcage heave as if it was about to crack. Zhao watched in half-embarrassed fascination as the strained rhythm stuttered, broke, and then collapsed into the unmistakable hiccuping of sobs.

“Agni,” the boy gasped behind his hands, voice wet and garbled. “Agni, thank you, thank you…”

Zhao hit him. “Don’t swear by Agni, you don’t have the right!”

The boy stared up at him. His face was blotchy but strangely free of wetness. He looked beyond shocked, as if out of all the indignities he’d suffered up to now, getting _slapped_ was somehow the worst.

“What?”, Zhao snapped. He could feel his temper slipping. His eyes kept being drawn to the mad ruin of the wall.

All color bled out of the boy’s face until it was utterly white with hate. As Zhao watched, two tears escaped from the good eye and evaporated almost the second they came in contact with skin.

“You can’t keep me here,” the boy croaked. “I’m going to get out and I’ll _kill_ you.”

For the first time in the last three weeks, Zhao found himself without a retort. He believed every word of that. 

His unease must have shown. The boy blinked, and a fierce grin of triumph flashed across his face. He rolled up from his half-prone, half-crouched position and launched himself at Zhao again with a shout like a war cry. It was a clumsy attack; he yelped in pain when fire flashed from his seared palms, and only succeeded in grabbing on to Zhao’s sash for a moment before Zhao kicked him in the chest hard enough to make him tumble across the floor.

“Try that again when your hands are better, idiot,” Zhao sneered. When he marched away, nearly bowling over the physician on his way out, the boy hissed at his back like a demented ostrich-horse.

It took Zhao a long time to fall asleep that night. He dreamed of the black and white fish again, but this time, they ate him. The black fish engulfed him and crushed him, and the teeth it sank into his flesh were pure ice.

He fought and struggled to draw air into his freezing lungs, and somewhere in between one desperate gasp and the next, he managed to shake off the nightmare. It took him a few more moments of pure panic to realize that he was indeed awake; the darkness was merely the nighttime gloom of his cabin. The ghostly teeth were a cold metal blade at his throat. There was a human hand twisted in his hair and a human weight crushing his back and elbows. It reeked, that unmistakable cellblock scent of unwashed bodies and waste. That was going to cling to his bed for _days_.

Zhao inhaled. The blade pressed tighter against him, threatening to break the skin.

“Don’t yell.” The boy’s rasp was so close he had to be within kissing distance. His warm breath brushed over Zhao’s ear.

Zhao opened his eyes properly, but there was nothing to see besides the weave of his pillow in faint moonlight. The grip on his hair wasn't very tight. The blade, though, felt likely to slip right into his flesh if he tried to move his head. 

“How the hell did you get out?”, he grunted.

The boy snickered. It wasn’t a very nice sound. “I broke the lock.”

“How?”

“With the dagger you had on you when you came in to kick at me. Thanks.”

Zhao remembered the boy's look of triumph, the fumbling attack and the hands grabbing at his sash, and considered signing his own execution order. He was clearly too stupid to live if a downed and injured child could still rob him. If he hadn’t been so livid and so close to having his throat opened like a butchered hog-swain, he might have taken a moment to be impressed. Everyone always said that Princess Azula and her brother were like night and day, but Zhao had seen the boy display so many flashes of real and ruthless deviousness that he was beginning to doubt that bit of common knowledge.

But what was he doing here? Surely he couldn’t be hoping to take Zhao hostage. Even if he did manage it, by some miracle, he could never keep it up for long. Everyone had to sleep sometime, and the boy hadn’t been resting or eating much in the past three weeks. Besides, his hands must be paining him. The knife-edge pressing against Zhao’s throat was trembling already. 

Perhaps Zhao could keep a conversation going long enough for the boy to tire or make a mistake. “Where are your guards, boy? And mine?”

“They fell asleep.”

“Did you kill them?”

“What? No,” the boy said, very quickly. _Prince Zuko, Prince Zuko. Still squeamish._

Zhao pushed his finger in the soft place and dug in. “I see. Failure to assure the safety of their commander in his own cabin. That will be five fire-lashes for each of them.”

The blade jerked. “You could kill them with that! I surprised them, it wasn’t their fault.” 

“That’s hardly an excuse, boy. They’re my men, I can punish them when they fail in their duties.”

The boy was starting to lean back, as if trying to recoil from Zhao without letting him go. The press of his knees on Zhao’s elbows had lessened considerably. Almost… Zhao tried to turn his forearm so he’d be able to chop at the boy’s neck the moment his arm was free.

He nearly screamed when the boy’s full weigh slammed forward again, grinding the bones in his elbows together.

“Stop trying to distract me,” the boy hissed in his ear. “We’re going to make a deal.”

“I’m not negotiating with a knife at my throat,” Zhao spat. “Get off me and parley like a civilized man.”

“Hah. No,” the boy scoffed. Zhao would have given him another round of applause if he could. _Excellent thinking, Highness. Far above your usual level._

He had a couple of tiles left in this game, though. And this child had a lot of buttons to push. “Boy, if you have a shred of honor left, you will…”

The blade broke his skin, and the knee on Zhao’s left arm dug in so hard that only the metal against his throat kept him from howling.

“Too bad I _don’t_ have a shred of honor left,” the boy snarled. “We’re going to make a deal, or I’m killing you right now.”

“Boy, if you kill me, the crew of this ship will kill you. Don’t be ridiculous. Get off me.”

“Like I have anything to lose.” The other knee started digging in. “A _deal_. Now, or you’ll be remembered as the Commander Zhao who got beaten in Agni Kai and murdered in his bed by a _boy_.”

The blade moved, and blood began to trickle down Zhao’s neck and into his hair. He grit his teeth. This had clearly become a situation that called for a tactical retreat now and horrible vengeance at a later point in time.

“What do you want, boy?” Maybe this wouldn’t be so bad. At this point, Zhao didn’t think he’d actually mind setting the boy free. It would be a pity, and the boy would probably find new and exciting ways to be a royal nuisance even when he wasn’t on Zhao’s ship, but at least it would make General Iroh go away.

“I want out of that cell and I want to hunt the Avatar with you.”

What? 

“No. I don’t share my glory.”

“What glory? You haven’t caught a thing.”

“Watch your mouth, you little nobody,” Zhao hissed.

“I’ve been tracking the Avatar for almost three years. You’re doing it wrong. But you have all the ships and resources I need,” the boy said. “Once we catch the Avatar, you’ll take him to Caldera and tell Father it was me who got him. If he wants me to do anything else before I can come home, you’ll help me do that as well. If you break your word and don’t tell Father it was me, I’ll find you and kill you if it’s the last thing I do.”

It was the longest speech Zhao had ever heard the boy give. It sounded well-rehearsed and very sincere, especially the last part.

“That’s hardly a fair deal, boy. I’d be the one providing all the resources for this little jaunt. And I’d be letting an exile tag along out of the goodness of my heart, at great risk to my own honor as a loyal man of the Fire Navy.” Zhao growled and tried to move his head just a little; the pillow under his mouth was getting uncomfortably damp. “And what if I capture the Avatar without your involvement?”

The knife bit into his skin again, deeper than before. A fresh rush of hot blood trickled onto his chest.

“I don’t care if it’s fair or not. You will still tell my father that we couldn’t have caught him without me.”

Zhao resisted the urge to just set the pillow on fire. He preferred his face with eyebrows, and if he damaged his sideburns, it wouldn't matter whether or not the boy ended up slitting his throat; Zhao's barber would finish the job for him. “Boy, use your head. I can agree to your demands now and kill you in your sleep tomorrow. What do you have to _offer_ me?” The words were out before it occurred to Zhao that he probably shouldn’t be giving this crazy child lessons in arm-twisting. Damn it.

“I wasn’t finished,” Zuko hissed. “I’ll help you. You told me what you want, I remember.” He leaned back on the small of Zhao’s back, and the bite of the knife eased. 

“I know what you need,” he murmured. “The spirits of the Moon and the Ocean. Help me catch the Avatar, and I’ll help you catch your fish.”

Zhao was so surprised that he forgot about the knife for a moment and tried to turn his head. The boy actually let him.

“You remember that?”

The boy’s white teeth flashed in the moonlight. “I don’t forget much.”

Zhao stared hard at him. “You will help me catch the spirits of the Moon and the Ocean? How?”

“You said they’re up north, back when you told me about them. The city of the Northern Water Tribe?”

Zhao nodded, as far as he could manage in his position. “Almost certainly. I found information about a spirit oasis hidden in the fortress, but there’s no way to verify it. A firebender can’t just walk in there.”

The boy’s eyes gleamed. “I bet I can.”

“You don’t know that you can,” Zhao sighed.

“Watch me.”

Zhao believed it. For a moment, he truly believed it.

“Oh,” the boy said. “And you also need to promise that you’ll stop trying to harm my ship and my uncle.”

“Don’t you want to go back to your ship?” Zhao really wanted him to go away, now.

The boy shook his head. He shifted on Zhao’s back as if looking for a more comfortable position to threaten him from. “No, I’m staying here to make sure you keep your part of the deal.”

Lovely. “What if I refuse your deal, boy?”

The dagger was lifted from his throat and appeared in his field of vision. The boy let it spin over his finger, and Zhao’s blood flew from the blade in a perfect arc. It left a thin slash of glittering black from the scar all the way down to the boy’s savage grin.

“That’s okay. I think I’d rather kill you right now, anyway.”

He certainly believed that.

“Very well. A deal,” Zhao ground out. “The Avatar for you, and the spirits for me. But I can’t guarantee that the Fire Lord will accept your… peace offering.” He felt compelled to say it. Somehow, it felt wrong to deliberately let the boy keep on believing that taking the Avatar to Lord Ozai might _help_.

“That is my business.” The boy’s expression had darkened rather alarmingly. He started playing with his knife again, letting it tumble along his hands in quick flashes of silver. Zhao had no idea how that trick worked, and it was hard to concentrate on figuring it out when he could feel the displaced air from the blade brushing along his naked back.

“Swear, Zhao. You will help me catch the Avatar and give me the credit.”

Nothing for it. He’d find a way to wriggle out of this when there was no knife-wielding maniac sitting on top of him. “I swear I will help you catch the Avatar and give you the credit, on my honor as a man of the Fire Nation.”

The boy nodded. “And I swear that I’ll help you catch the spirits of the Moon and the Ocean. On my word of honor.” He didn’t sound very sure of himself by the end, but Zhao wasn’t about to split hairs just when the weight on his arms was finally lifting away. The boy clambered off the bed entirely and retreated several steps towards the desk. He watched Zhao struggle to sit up with a strangely detached expression.

It took Zhao a few tries to make his abused arms support the weight of his upper body, but he finally made it into a more comfortable seated position from which he could inspect the damage to his throat. It didn’t feel quite as dreadful as he’d feared. 

Zhao yanked up the bloodied sheet, pressed it to his neck, and glowered at the boy. He still had to make the critter actually _leave_. “You will be given a proper cabin,” he began, trying to make it sound like he was handing out favors. “But you will not leave it unless I’m with you.”

The boy’s frown turned thunderous. He hadn’t moved from his position next to the desk, but he was still fingering his knife. “I need free roam of this ship.”

“Absolutely not. You’re a violent lunatic.”

“I’ll give you my word of honor! I won’t harm you or your crew, _unless_ you break your word.”

“Your word of honor is worth less than that of a hog-pig, boy.”

The boy slashed a trail of orange fire through the air, a shocking burst of color in the gloom of the cabin.

“ _Stop calling me that!_ ”

“Make me,” Zhao snapped. “If you wanted free roam, you should have asked for it. I’m not an idiot, boy. You're welcome to toddle off to your uncle, but if you’re going to stay on _my_ ship, you'll stay either with me or in your cabin so I know where you are at all times. All your needs will be provided for, within reason.”

The boy looked unhappy, but not like he was about to throw a tantrum. “Whatever. I need to write to my uncle and tell him I’m all right.”

Zhao smiled, a bit painfully. Yes, he was in his own cabin, in command and in control, handing out favors. He had not just been overpowered by a child with a pig-sticker.

“You may write whoever you like, but you will let me read any letters you send or receive, whenever I want. You’re on _my_ ship, with _my_ rules, and nobody on my ship carries on secret correspondence.”

“If I don’t reassure Uncle I’m fine, he’ll just try to attack you again first chance he gets.”

Zhao snorted. “He’s welcome to try. I’m not afraid of senile old fools.”

The boy smiled. It was creepy. “Right,” he said. He opened his mouth again, probably to make another silly demand, when the door to Zhao’s cabin burst open. 

“Sir!” It was the sergeant from before. “We found your guard detail unconscious in the hallway. Is everything…” 

His eyes slid from Zhao’s bloody neck to the boy, who was still playing with the knife and eying the sergeant with a look of rather polite interest. From the utter terror that slammed over the man’s face, one would have thought the boy was a vat of blasting jelly about to go off and take half of the ship out.

“You are very late, Sergeant,” Zhao snarled. He dearly wanted to throw the man overboard, but if he punished everyone who’d failed to apprehend the boy while he snuck out of the prison hold, across the length of the ship, up the command tower, and into Zhao’s bedroom entirely undetected, he’d have to execute three fourths of his crew. It sounded like a more and more amazing feat the longer Zhao thought about it. Either his men were far more incompetent than he’d thought, or the boy had missed his calling as a masked assassin.

“Take everyone who is _not_ standing guard at their proper posts to the prison hold. I’ll deal with them tomorrow,” he growled at the sergeant. 

“Yes, sir,” the man babbled. He looked about to shit himself. That cheered Zhao up a little.

“Order the quartermaster to prepare the official guest cabin for the prisoner. He…” 

“The what!?”

Spirits, he was going to regret this. “Force of habit,” he ground out. “ _Prince Zuko_ may stay in the guest cabin without any restraints. If he tries to leave it, return him to his old cell immediately.”

The boy started to make another outraged noise, and Zhao whirled on him. “If Prince Zuko _succeeds_ in leaving, whoever let him out will be strangled,” Zhao spat. He glared at the sergeant from the corners of his eyes. “You would make Prince Zuko very sad if you died because of him. He is well-known for his concern for soldiers.”

The boy gaped at him. His mouth opened and closed, but he apparently couldn’t think of a good retort to that. Finally.

“Any other requests you wish me to grant, boy?”

He took a deep breath. “I want to bathe. And get clean clothes.”

“Tell the quartermaster to bring a set of clothing in our guest’s size. _Civilian_ clothing.”

“Sir, we only have Fire Nation clothing,” the sergeant began.

Oh, for fuck’s sake. “Then bring Fire Nation clothing, I don’t give a damn, bring _something_.”

“I want armor,” the boy said at once.

Greedy. “Only Fire Nation citizens may wear our armor. If you put on one single military boot, I have to kill you.” The boy flushed. Good. “But if you prefer to go about naked, by all means do _not_ wear civilian dress.”

“Fuck you,” the boy snarled.

Zhao leered at him. “I will take you up on that. Anything else, _Highness?_ ”

“No.” 

“Get out of my sight, sergeant,” Zhao sighed. The man obeyed with a great deal of alacrity. Zhao waved a hand at the boy. “You too. You can use my private washing room, right behind you. Consider it an allowance because of you former rank. Leave your rags out here, the quartermaster will take them away.”

His unwelcome guest goggled at him. It took Zhao a moment to realize that he’d just suggested the boy disrobe in front of him - again. He hadn’t really meant to. It was the middle of the night, the adrenaline was wearing off, and his head was starting to feel like a ball of wet cotton. He needed a drink.

Zhao tried to leer some more, but he was sure it looked rather tired. “Do you need assistance? Your hands must hurt.” 

The boy did that thing again where he somehow looked down his nose while being a head shorter than Zhao.

“ _No_ , I can wash myself,” he snapped. He extracted his little packet of letters from his waistband, put them on the desk with the knife on top, and shimmied out of his Earth Kingdom clothes. Then he kicked the pile of fabric to the side and snatched up his weapon again the moment his hands were free.

Zhao blinked. “Are you going to take that into the washing room?”

The boy clutched the dagger tight against his naked hip. “I’m keeping it,” he stated. He obviously thought Zhao might try to take the weapon if he let it out of his sight for even a second. Zhao was certain he’d rather touch a hawk-viper.

“Very well. It’s your toy,” he conceded, as if he couldn’t still feel the press of the razor-sharp thing on his jugular. There were more ignoble ways to die for a firebender than getting one’s throat cut, but not many he could think of.

And many things he’d much rather think of, Zhao mused as he caught a glimpse of the boy’s very shapely backside before the door of the washing room slammed closed. But he needed some wine before he was going to do any more mental hard labor.

Zhao sat back on his bed, tried to ignore the throbbing in his left elbow where the boy’s sharp knee had dug in too deeply, and drank the last of the Caldera wine straight from the bottle. It helped. By the time the splashing of water in the side room stopped, he’d thought of nine different ways to double-cross the boy, five of which he could pull off without even breaking the vow he’d sworn.

He hadn’t come up with a single reason why he’d want to, though.

Then the boy marched out of the washing room absolutely naked and now steaming, shot Zhao another one of those adorable glares, and grabbed up the clothes that the quartermaster had carried in a few minutes before. “Stop staring at me,” he snapped. He looked about to work himself into a snit again.

Oh no, no more shouting. Not tonight. “Weren’t you going to write to your uncle?”

Miracle of miracles, the distraction actually worked. The anger didn’t quite vanish from the boy’s face, but it was certainly shoved aside by anticipation.

“Ah. Yeah,” he said. He finished tying his sash, sat down behind Zhao’s desk without waiting for an invitation, and lit one of the candles by blowing over the wick. He winced when his bandaged fingers closed around the ink stick. 

“Boy, I can write it for you,” Zhao said before he’d quite thought about it.

“No, he’ll just worry if it’s not in my handwriting.” The boy seemed to think for half a minute and then began to write, with overlarge but fairly steady strokes. Whatever he’d been composing in his head, it was obviously something nice. His frown had melted away almost completely by the time he started on a second vertical row.

Zhao leaned back on his bed, right hand still massaging his sore elbow, and contemplated the little monster while it was at peace. He looked deceptively normal, sitting at a regular piece of furniture and at work by candlelight instead of scowling from behind bars. Such a shame about his face. Few handsome boys managed to become truly handsome men as they gained their years, but this one would have done it without the least effort if not for that damned mark. Still, with the thickening layer of dark brown hair covering his scalp, the scar was starting to look less and less… prominent. It no longer overwhelmed all his other features. The new clothes made an amazing difference, too. They were almost as simple as the Earth Kingdom outfit, but a deep blood-red instead of grayish green, and the new color seemed to soak up the worst of the scar and glue all the ragged parts of him together into one whole person. 

That boy was going to end up dead or Fire Lord. Zhao’s money was firmly on “dead”, but it was definitely going to be one of those two options and nothing else. No middle ground. Sozin’s get wouldn’t know a middle ground if they had their pretty faces ground into one. It was what Zhao had always admired the most about their nation’s ruling dynasty; all or nothing was a sentiment he could truly get behind. He’d never seen the spark of it in this child back in Caldera, but clearly, the prince was just a late bloomer.

Zhao hoped Lord Ozai would do the smart thing and reconsider his son’s punishment soon. If he waited until the boy decided that he didn’t like his father anymore, their supreme ruler might wake up in his palace one night with that pig-sticker at his throat.

“Zhao! Where are we going now, anyway?”

Zhao shook himself out of his somewhat disturbing reverie. Regicide was not a safe topic under any circumstances, including in pure fantasy. The boy was still writing his letter.

“We’ll make port at Pohuai in two days. I intend to ask Colonel Shinu for the use of his archers.”

The boy looked up.

“Archers? What help are some archers going to be? We’re supposed to catch the Avatar, not kill him.”

Zhao tut-tutted, though not too loudly. “Ah, but these are the _Yu Yan_ archers. They can pin a fly to a wall without killing it. And if they can do that, they can also pin an Avatar to a tree.”

“The Yu Yan,” the boy breathed. He looked impressed. “Yeah, I’ve heard of them. But don’t you need two hundred gold a day to hire them? Even if Shinu lets you?”

Two hundred gold? That was what Zhao spent on the barber every month. Up to now, he hadn’t quite realized what it meant that the boy had been searching for the Avatar with nothing but a floating washing tub and a couple of rhinos for the last three years. He must have no concept at all of what real resources and clout could buy.

Zhao let a lazy smile spread over his face. “I can afford them. Would you like some archers, Highness?”

The boy’s eyes glittered as if Zhao had promised him a dragon of his very own.

“Yeah, archers sounds good. We'll try that.”

He was almost grinning by the time he finished his letter. Zhao contemplated the wisdom of offering the boy a drink and see what happened.

* * *

_**Two years earlier, in the study hall of the Oka Monastery** _

_They sat at the table in silence for a while. The boy pretended he was still inspecting the scroll on the table, but judging from the way he kept worrying his slightly swollen lips, his mind was on something else entirely. Zhao rather desperately wanted to ask if that had been the boy’s first kiss, but that would be crass even for him._

_“What is your heading, Highness?”, he inquired instead._

_The boy blinked, swallowed, and made a visible effort to get his mind back into the present._

_“We’re going to spend the autumn searching along the Northern coast of the Earth Kingdom. We should be heading south past Ba Sing Se by the time winter comes, if there’s nothing blocking the straits.”_

_Zhao leaned in and dropped his voice to a whisper. “This is classified information, Highness, so don’t tell the nuns. Our navy will execute a two-pronged assault to obliterate Ba Sing Se’s fleet at the end of the tenth month. You will find no obstacles in your way there.”_

_The boy sighed. “Oh. That’s good.” Then he frowned. “They should have told me!”_

__There are many things they haven’t told you._ “I will probably be sailing to Chameleon Bay immediately after the attack myself, Highness, but perhaps you will find me in the south during the spring.”_

_A nod. “I think I’ll be home with the Avatar by then, though.”_

_“Perhaps,” Zhao conceded. “Either way… When we meet again, you will be taller, and closer to your goal.”_

_The boy looked pensive for a moment. Then a small, pleased smile appeared on his face._

_“Yeah, I suppose I will be.”_

_“I look forward to it.” Zhao leaned in and pressed their mouths together again, pushing heat forward and feeling it being pulled in as the boy took his cue and inhaled._

_He licked a curl of flame along the boy’s lips. “Think of this when your new bed feels cold, Highness. It will help.”_

_The boy smiled against his mouth._

_He was sweet, he really was, but it would never last. He’d figure out soon enough that the quests of adults were nothing like childish adventures, and that Zhao was only one of many who’d put a knife in his back as soon as kiss him. But perhaps he’d learn to grow in the image of his tormenters and turn everything back on them a thousandfold._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Now that this fic is no longer anon, I'd like to ramble on a bit about Zuko's characterization here, which a couple of people have mentioned. Personal opinions ahead, feel free to skip or ignore.
> 
> The Zuko that Zhao’s got in his prison hold is S1!Zuko, who regardless of all future character development is most certainly not adorkable S3!Zuko or even meandering-in-the-general-direction-of-good S2!Zuko. S1!Zuko has his moments and is definitely familiar with morals and compassion, but in general, he’s a mean, destructive, mercenary little bastard. He sneaks around and makes deals with pirates and bounty hunters and taunts girls he just tied to a tree, and he doesn’t give a damn if he burns down neutral island villages or nunneries while he’s trying to get at the Avatar. He’s not always very good at being a ruthless cackling villain, but he tries so hard and sometimes [it even works](http://piandao.org/screencaps/ep9/ep9-693.png). Of course Zuko just gets more interesting later on, but I love that seed of _fun_ evil that he had in the first season. He really is related to Azula.
> 
> Canon characterization aside, I have a totally random but very firmly entrenched personal headcanon for S1!Zuko (born from [this fic](http://archiveofourown.org/works/339401)) that he and Lieutenant Jee had a thing going on since before the start of the series. ‘The Storm’ is basically an episode about their great lovers’ spat, with a B-plot of people reminiscing about sad childhoods. Cough. I now end up writing Zuko from this perspective pretty much all of the time, including in this fic. So compared to canon Zuko, this Zuko is probably a bit more sexually experienced, and significantly more aware that some people do indeed find him attractive and would like to bonk with him. Aware enough that he might try to use it as a weapon if he’s in truly desperate straits - what’s some dignity when his honor and place at his father’s side are at stake? And aware enough that when someone tries to come on to him at a time when he’s lonely and/or feels like letting off steam, he’ll notice what they’re trying to do and may go along with it instead of getting all flustered and giving them coupons. Song, Jet, and Jin will probably have a lot more fun in this verse than they did in canon.


End file.
